Facebook, under pressure for contributing to skyrocketing Silicon Valley housing prices, will help address the shortage of affordable homes in the Bay Area with donations to four different projects aimed at low-income residents.
The $38 million donation will help the projects provide almost 500 homes for formerly homeless people and people with low incomes, San Francisco Business Times reports.
“We know that the path to ending homelessness is by building more housing for extremely low-income households,” Ray Bramson, CEO of Destination: Home, which is working with Facebook, said in the article.
The grants from Facebook include $9.75 million to Villas at Buena Vista in San Jose; $8.3 million to Lighthouse at Grace in San Jose; $14 million to 1171 Sonora Court in Sunnyvale; and $5.8 million to Elevate Apartments in Alameda County.
In San Jose, Villas at Buena Vista will provide 94 homes and Lighthouse at Grace will have fewer than 100 residences. All of the units in Lighthouse and half of the units in Villas will be designated for formerly homeless families.
The Sunnyvale project will provide 160 homes for people with “extremely low incomes” and Elevate Apartments in Alameda will set aside 80 percent of its 132 residential units for affordable housing.
After the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ended President Biden’s national eviction moratorium, and with California’s own moratorium expected to expire at the end of September, even more residents will be at risk of being without a home. Starting in October, the state will allow landlords to pursue new eviction cases against renters unless tenants get approval to receive rental assistance.
The donation comes from Facebook’s $150 million Community Housing Fund that was established in December to provide support to affordable housing projects in the Bay Area.
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[SFBT] — Victoria Pruitt