On October 15, 2026, I accepted four national awards from the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) on behalf of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. They were presented at the NAHRO 2026 National Conference & Exhibition in Denver.
The awards
- NAHRO National Award of Excellence for New Jersey Housing Opportunities for Municipal Equity and Success (NJHOMES)
- NAHRO National Award of Merit for NJHOMES
- NAHRO National Award of Merit for the NJ Eviction Guide, built with DCA’s Office of Eviction Prevention
- NAHRO National Award of Merit for the Homelessness Economic Risk Framework (HERF) AI model
Who built them
DCA staff built all three in-house, with no vendor dependence. NJHOMES is a program, and its public tools include the NJHOMES Choice Tool and the NJHOMES Atlas.
The credit belongs to DCA’s software engineering and data science teams and the program staff they worked with, including the Office of Eviction Prevention. I was glad to accept the awards on the Department’s behalf.
The next day I presented Using Generative AI to Predict Housing Instability and Model Solutions at the same conference. The session covered how HERF was built and how DCA has used it.
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