Amazon Commits $1.4B for Affordable Homes

Amazon has committed $1.4 billion to its Housing Equity Fund, with the goal of building 14,000 affordable homes in the Seattle, Nashville and Washington metro areas. The new commitment brings Amazon’s total housing pledge to $3.6 billion.

“We hope that our additional commitment—coupled with other public and private resources—will help make a meaningful difference for thousands more people and enable these regions to thrive,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

In 2021 the company earmarked $2 billion for low-interest loans and grants to bolster housing in the high-cost West Coast cities and Amazon says it has exceeded its original goal two years early by providing $2.2 billion to create and preserve more than 21,000 affordable homes.

Its efforts have been focused on units for families earning 30% to 80% of each area’s median income and has typically worked with nonprofit groups to buy existing apartment complexes and reserve them for low-income families, which is more affordable than building housing from scratch,  Jenny Schuetz, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, told Bloomberg.

It can cost $1 million to build a single affordable unit in expensive markets, she said, so even big pledges can be quickly depleted.

Amazon reports that 92% of homes it has funded are near bus or rail stations to reduce transportation costs and that 41% of the homes have two or more bedrooms to serve families.