Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
Facebook to invest $150 million to build housing for lower-income Bay Area residentsmaking it the largest private fund in California dedicated to creating homes for families earning less than 30 percent of the region's median income.
Through a statement, the technology giant's chief financial officer, David Wehner, said that this new Community Housing Fund will support the development of at least two thousand affordable housing units in Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
The money will be available for low-interest loans to local government developers and nonprofit organizations to buy hundreds more units and create permanent housing, he said.
"Homekey has changed the way California creates housing for the homeless, faster and at a lower cost. Facebook has stepped forward to invest up to $150 million available for low-interest loans to local governments and nonprofits to buy hundreds more units to create permanent housing."he said.
It should be noted that this investment is part of a billion-dollar commitment that Facebook announced last year, while the COVID-19 crisis calls for companies and governments to step up and go the extra mile to protect the most vulnerable with thousands of housing units.
Investing in extremely low-income housing is critical to addressing homelessness, as people who qualify as extremely low-income are the most vulnerable to falling into homelessness, Facebook said.
Many essential workers, whom we have all relied on during this pandemic, also rely on extremely low-income housing to be able to live and go to school in the communities where they work.
This fund will help fill a critical gap in California, where there is "a huge shortage of extremely low-income housing and very few dedicated sources of funding to build it.
The fund will be administered by the Local Initiative Support Corporation, the nation's largest community development organization, while Santa Clara County-based nonprofit Destination: Home contributed an additional $5 million.
Projects in Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties are eligible to apply, however, one-third of the funds will be dedicated to Santa Clara County through our partnership with Destination: Home.
As of today, projects are eligible to begin the funding intake process, and a First Community Housing project in San Jose, California, which will offer 123 deeply affordable apartments, will be funded in the coming months.
This effort is the direct result of collaborations with key partners to fund permanent and effective supportive housing models to increase the availability of affordable housing for extremely low-income families and address the disproportionate number of people of African descent experiencing homelessness in the Bay Area.
The Community Housing Fund is part of the commitment to the Alliance for the Future of the Bay, a collaborative regional effort to address affordable housing, and belongs to the Alliance's family of funds.
It also builds on years of Facebook's commitment to this space and its Catalyst Housing Fund, an affordable housing pilot program launched in 2016 that has helped create 600 affordable homes near the tech company's headquarters.
