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Google provides $128M in loans for affordable Bay Area home-building

Allotment for 23 projects part of $250M pledge

Google and Alphabet ceo Sundar Pichai with a rendering of Meridian, a 90-unit affordable housing development, in Sunnyvale, California (Steinberg Hart, Illustration by The Real deal with Getty)
Google and Alphabet ceo Sundar Pichai with a rendering of Meridian, a 90-unit affordable housing development, in Sunnyvale, California (Steinberg Hart, Illustration by The Real deal with Getty)

Google has now spent more than half its pledge of $250 million in loans to help build thousands of affordable homes across the Bay Area.

The Mountain View-based division of Alphabet has allocated $128 million to 18 groups to build 23 projects throughout the region, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported, citing a Google blog post. 

The loans, under contract as of last month, will help fund the construction of 3,200 homes, a company representative told the newspaper.

The $128 million is the first installment of the $250 million Google pledged to spend three years ago to support building affordable housing in the region. The $250 million is part of a $1 billion promise it made toward constructing 20,000 new homes.

The larger sum includes the value of land the company is donating for housing in San Jose as part of its Downtown West development and in Mountain View as part of its North Bayshore and Middlefield Park projects.

“The Bay Area is our home, and we’re helping our hometown communities solve challenging problems,” the company said in the blog post. “Over the last three years, we’ve been making investments and allocating land to help developers create new affordable housing units in all corners of the region.”

The loans are for particular projects to help with pre-development expenses, a Google representative told the Business Journal. It’s unclear if any projects have been completed.

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They include a $6.9 million loan to finance Kelsey Ayer Station, a 115-unit affordable housing complex in San Jose for people with and without disabilities.

The Google blog post grouped 18 project loan recipients around the South Bay, one in San Francisco, two in the north East Bay, one in Santa Rosa and one in Windsor.

In addition to the loans, Google also pledged three years ago to donate $50 million to area nonprofits that are working on addressing homelessness.

The company announced this week that it has earmarked $10 million of that money to be spent over the next three years to support programs testing the use of direct cash transfers to homeless people, at their discretion.

As part of the initiative, the company is working with Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which is partnering with several homeless service providers in the Bay Area, in addition to several local pilot cash transfer programs.

– Dana Bartholomew

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Affordable HousingBay AreaConstruction LoansDowntown WestGoogle