The new Partnership for the Bay?s Future is the latest private initiative aiming to help solve the affordable housing crisis. A new coalition to address housing affordability has launched an ambitious effort to to build and preserve up to 175,000 households over the next five years in the increasingly expensive Bay Area. The Partnership for the Bay?s Future aims to raise $500 million from high-profile donors including San Francisco Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Ford Foundation, and private partners including Facebook and Genentech.
Announced earlier today at the at San Francisco?s Commonwealth Club, the coalition?which will focus on San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties?is the latest announcement to channel private investments into affordable housing. Last week, Microsoft announced a $500 million investment in the Seattle area, creating a $475 million trust fund to support the creation of middle-income housing and a $25 million donation to address homelessness. This new activity in the Bay Area and Seattle shows corporations taking a more visible role at a time when affordability is becoming a more pressing political issue, and the role of the tech industry in accelerating housing costs has come under the microscope.
?Talk to anyone in the nonprofit housing world, and they?ll say having the kind of capital Microsoft is putting up is extraordinarily important.?
This new funding addresses a desperate need. For every 100 l...