Apple, Partners Launch $50M Bay Area Housing Fund

Apple has teamed up with several partners to launch the Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund, an effort that will make targeted loans with favorable terms to affordable housing projects.

The fund is the latest initiative in the tech giant’s campaign to support affordable housing throughout California. Apple publically committed in 2019 to invest $2.5B to support affordable housing in the Golden State.

Apple is partnering with Sobrato Philanthropies, San Jose-based Destination: Home and the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund on the Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund. Sobrato Philanthropies is a non-profit affiliated with developer Sobrato Organization.

“We cannot effectively address the homelessness and affordability crises in the Bay Area if we continue building and funding affordable housing in the same way,” said Rebecca Foster, CEO of the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, which will manage the new Bay Area project.

“We must think outside the box to significantly reduce costs and timelines. This fund is designed to showcase what is possible when we have clear goals, a shared commitment to meet these targets, and a simplified financing structure,” Foster said, in a statement.

The Bay Area fund is opening its initiative with $50M that will be used to help finance four affordable housing projects in the region. The projects aim to create more than 400 new homes within the next two years.

Next week, Mercy Housing will break ground on the Bay Area’s fund’s first initiative to start construction. The project at 1633 Valencia Street, in the Mission District, will provide 145 units of permanent supportive housing for seniors experiencing or at imminent risk of experiencing homelessness.

The fund expects a second project to break ground later this year in Santa Cruz. The financing model offered by the Housing Innovation Fund is geared to speed up construction and avoid escalating costs, aiming for projects that can be completed within three years at targeted unit costs.

Cupertino-based Apple said it has thus far invested $1.6B to assist affordable housing developers with more than 90 projects building or preserving more than 10,000 residential units in California, many of which have already been completed.

Apple also has helped more than 35K Bay Area residents who were at risk of losing their homes and has assisted more than 2,500 first-time home buyers finance their properties, the tech firm said.

In addition to the Bay Area fund, Apple is working with Housing Trust Silicon Valley, the California Housing Finance Agency, United Way of Greater Los Angeles and several individual housing developers to address the housing crisis.