Apple is accelerating its support for affordable housing initiatives and over the past 18 months has deployed more than $1 billion for projects across California. Apple’s financial commitment has already helped thousands of people in the state become homeowners for the first time. In addition, Apple is providing capital to facilitate the construction of thousands of new affordable units and supporting at-risk communities. This major milestone in the company’s $2.5 billion commitment to combat the housing crisis in the state demonstrates the importance of innovative housing solutions.
“California’s communities have shown their resilience in the face of immense challenges this past year. As we look to a brighter future ahead, Apple is committed to continuing our work with partners across the state to support these communities and help combat the housing crisis in meaningful ways,” said Kristina Raspe, Apple’s vice president for Global Real Estate and Facilities, in a statement. “As we expand our efforts and move forward with our comprehensive plan to address housing in the state, we’re proud our work has made a tangible impact on the lives of so many Californians.”
Apple’s affordable housing commitments are designed to address housing scarcity and affordability across several distinct approaches, targeting various populations and filling existing gaps in the space. In partnership with Destination: Home, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA), and Housing Trust Silicon Valley, the $1 billion in funding has helped support new housing development and construction, assisted first-time buyers purchase homes, and expanded programs to reduce homelessness.
After announcing its commitment in November 2019, Apple quickly started working with partners to allocate and disburse funds across the state — deploying more than $500 million by the end of 2020 in an effort to combat the heightened housing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, Apple has supported affordable housing efforts across 25 California counties, from Alameda and Amador to Ventura and Yolo. The funds have assisted thousands of first-time homebuyers, supported the development of thousands of new affordable units, and helped keep thousands of Bay Area families housed during the pandemic.
In conjunction with CalHFA, Apple has provided mortgage and down payment assistance to thousands of low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers. Close to two-thirds of borrowers identify as Hispanic, Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, or American Indian. The program has also provided additional benefits for teachers, veterans, and firefighters — which comprise nearly 10 percent of borrowers.
Apple has also partnered with CalHFA to launch an affordable housing investment program, the first of its kind in California, which has increased the availability of funding to develop and build very low- to moderate-income housing at a lower cost. This innovative funding mechanism means the state now has access to financial resources that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Launched in July 2020, the program has become a critical tool to produce additional affordable housing units in the state.
Construction is underway for several new affordable housing developments in the South Bay and East Bay regions of Northern California, funded through a public-private partnership between Apple and Housing Trust Silicon Valley. To date, the partnership has committed funding to 10 projects, spanning the entire greater Bay Area. These projects are expected to create more than 800 new units of affordable housing, many of them reserved for vulnerable communities — including homeless senior citizens, veterans, and people with developmental disabilities.
In November 2019, Apple committed $2.5 billion to combat the housing crisis in California across a series of initiatives over several years, including:
• A first-of-its-kind $1 billion affordable housing investment fund with the state of California.
• A $1 billion first-time homebuyer mortgage assistance fund, with increased funding opportunities for essential services personnel, school employees, and veterans.
• $300 million in Apple-owned land made available for affordable housing.
• A $150 million Bay Area housing fund, in public-private partnership with Housing Trust Silicon Valley.
• $50 million to support Destination: Home’s efforts to address homelessness in Silicon Valley.
MacDailyNews Take: Only Apple would do this even though many other companies could, they don’t. This is yet another reason why Americans should support Apple, not some South Korean dishwasher maker knockoff peddler, for one of myriad examples.
Apple leads. Hopefully, many more companies will follow Apple’s lead, as usual.
Whatever it takes for overpaid Apple employees to keep their brown landscapers, nannies, garbagemen, etc.
Alternate headline:
Apple’s antitrust action mitigation program rollout continues.
“Look how good we are. We greatly helped destroy the Bay Area low income housing market and now, to ensure that we still have landscapers, etc., we’ll build some pretty nice ghettos. So, don’t be getting any ideas about penalizing us with antitrust actions.”
Bribery by any other name is still bribery.
Of course, as an Apple shareholder, I applaud Tim Cook’s blatant chutzpah.
Apple has to have offices and wherever they are, highly-paid tech people will distort the local housing market. $2 million hovels on .10 acre in parched, often-burning, crime-ridden, overcrowded, deficit-looming Kalifornia being a prime example.
Does the $1 billion include 5.4% for inflation or will that be added on later?
Added on later (usually around 4:15am) following Fulton, GA’s lead
Better than pissing it away on sub-orbital rocket powered joy rides for billionaire tax dodgers
They are not joy rides. They are an effort to find a reliable, but low cost method to get payloads into low earth orbit for our weather data, national security systems, communications, etc. That is not a joy ride. It is capitalism at its best. Or maybe you would prefer US interests wait for Cuba’s or Venezuela’s delivery system. Waiting… waiting… waiting… Uh, so, if the rich boys wanna float around in their new toys (that they paid for), then good for them. As a society, we will all benefit.
And, by the way, did Branson or Musk write the tax laws? Who has been writing, voting for and passing them (loopholes and all) for the past 40 years. Joe (and others), that’s who.
Virgin Galactic exists solely to provide suborbital joy rides. A separate Branson company, Virgin Orbital, is launching payloads into low earth orbit. Similarly, Blue Origin and its New Shepard rockets are offering suborbital joy rides for those who can afford them. The company has no orbital vehicles currently in production.
So what?
Absolutely right. Leftist pinheads live to point out semantic distinctions that no one cares about…
Given the unnecessary choice, I would rather be a pinhead than somebody who doesn’t care about the truth.
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are not “efforts at developing a reliable and low cost method of delivering cargos to low earth orbit.” It is not true that “they are not joy rides.” Their only current projects are offering suborbital joy rides to wealthy customers.
The difference between what is true and what is false is not “a semantic difference.”
You care about the TRUTH!!! ROTFL!
You are the biggest CONSISTENT LIAR POS around here!!!
Brainwashing spin does not work on woke patriots. You should remember that!….
Well one thing for sure…GuttersnipeTrashGoeB and truth are at opposite ends of the universe. But then, what else to expect from a lost_in_space lump head who thinks Jan 6th was just a few
AntifaDemocratsgood old boys having a bit fun where nobody died, is…not a lie?https://www.blueorigin.com/new-glenn
Not a current project.
https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-delays-first-launch-of-new-glenn-to-late-2022/
Well it is in every universe save for the one where you change word meanings.
Any billionaire tax dodging Cuban, Haitians or Venezuelans pissing it away on sub-orbital rocket powered joy rides?
Taking advantage of every legal tax exemption is NOT “tax dodging!”
Otherwise Apple, every business and every family would be guilty.
Poor choice of wording and nothing illegal here to complain about…
As long as homes are “stock certificates”–investment assets–it will be difficult for working class people to find affordable housing (from an investors viewpoint, having low income housing near their property, lowers its value) . . . The problem today is that affluent cities are “ghost cities” — you can find documentaries online about cities like Vancouver, in which the high end condos downtown, are investment properties, and no one actually “lives” there — then the workers have to commute over one hour from outside the city (since they can’t afford to live there) . . . We claim to live in an “advanced” society, but if one really “thinks” about how our society is set up, it doesn’t make much sense.
Nice, but It won’t matter much.
Until they roll back Ca Regs and allow for more high density housing (amount other things) $1-2B is a drop in the bucket.
Keep in mind, prop tax on $1M home is ~$10K/yr even for 1st time buyer. That’s 8% of a $120K Salary, huge. Even with dual income it’s a big pill to swallow.
Apple won’t even allow their employees to work remote full time. If Apple Employees could relocate to the central valley our out of state, that would have a bigger impact by reducing demand in the BA.
In the age of Gov sponsored pandemics, do cities make sense?
Hey! Maybe they can get Brad Pitt to head up design…
Good cause to relieve their guilt driving up home prices only highly paid employees and executives can afford.
After the snowflakes are taken care of in the Welfare State use a billion for a noble cause:
“The Tunnel to Towers Foundation builds mortgage-free smart homes for our most catastrophically injured veterans and first responders.”
All over the country…
Dejavú. From the mid 1800s to the early 1900s, the US had company towns, where the Big Co owned housing and stores for its workers.