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July/August 2019 - In This Issue:
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Google Makes Big Investment in TECH Fund
Google, a longtime supporter and friend
of Housing Trust Silicon Valley, is following through on its commitment to affordable housing by investing $50 million in our TECH Fund.
Housing Trust Silicon Valley launched the TECH (Tech + Equity + Community + Housing) Fund in March 2017 to provide affordable housing developers the flexible financing needed to compete for sites on the open market - a key barrier to building affordable housing. Google's investment will enable Housing Trust Silicon Valley to continue helping create and preserve affordable housing units across the Bay Area. This investment follows closely on
Google's $1 billion commitment
to invest in housing and the production of at least 20,000 homes in the Bay Area. It is the company's first investment from its $250 million affordable housing fund.
The investments in TECH Fund tend to be deployed quickly, which is a main reason why the initiative has already helped bring online 2,255 homes across 20 developments in Silicon Valley. This includes the purchase of land, construction of new homes, and preservation of existing homes for affordable housing that is close to job centers and transit options in San Jose, Mountain View, and other cities and towns in the region.
Over half of the homes TECH Fund has helped secure are designated for families, a third for the homeless and/or permanent supportive housing, and one-in-five for seniors. Most homes are aimed at those earning 60 percent of the area median income or less.
"As part of our $1 billion housing commitment, we've been looking for ways to address the affordable housing crisis in the Bay Area," said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google in our press release making the announcement. "Housing Trust Silicon Valley provided us with the perfect opportunity to do that through their TECH Fund, which uses critical capital to break down barriers to building affordable housing. We are proud to be the fund's largest investor to date and look forward to working together to create housing for those who need it most."
We thank Google for joining Cisco, the Grove Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, LinkedIn, NetApp, Pure Storage and the Sobrato Family Foundation in our endeavor - and we can't wait to share the next TECH Fund announcement with you!
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The Veranda Opens in Cupertino and A Wall Rises in Mountain View
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| Site of The Veranda in Cupertino on the day of the groundbreaking ceremony, April 19th 2018 |
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On April 18, 2018, several of the Housing Trust team attended the groundbreaking ceremony of The Veranda in Cupertino - a Charities Housing development intended to create 18 affordable homes for seniors. Less than 18 months later, we got to attend the grand opening!
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| The Veranda on its grand opening day, August 12, 2019 |
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| At MidPen's Wall Raising ceremony for Shorebreeze Apartments. Our own Kevin Zwick is fifth from left. |
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The very next day, we carpoo
led
up to Mountain View to take part in a 'wall raising' ceremony for MidPen Housing's Sh
orebreeze project.
Housing Trust provided a $700,000 predevelopment loan as well as a $500,000 55-year deferred permanent loan to help with gap financing for the expansion - which will renovate 108 existing homes and replace 12 older units with 62 new homes.
Thank you MidPen, Union Bank, the City of Mountain View, and others for all of the collaborative work to make this project happen!
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On the House is on Oct. 7th
(And we have an #InvestorBriefing20 Update)
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| Some of the childhood photos on display at last year's On the House. The next OTH is Oct. 7, 2019 at District SJ in San Jose |
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This year On the House will be held at
District SJ in downtown San Jose on Oct. 7th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, and we'd love for you to join us for drinks, networking, and a chance to celebrate another year of creating affordable housing opportunities in the greater Bay Area.
Sponsorship opportunities for On the House are still available - please contact Alison Frost at
Alison@housingtrustsv.org.
We'd also love you to join us in our social media campaign to promote On the House: please share any happy memory of home, big or small, from any part of your life. Please use the hashtag #HomeInMemory and tag at least two others to ask they share theirs. It can be a photo or just text - just make sure you
make your posts public when using Facebook and share the link
onthehouse2019.eventbrite.com!
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Sumayia Hakim, speaking at Investor Briefing 2019
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And in case you missed our last issue we've picked a date for Investor Briefing:
March 13, 2020
. Since it is our 20th year be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter so you'll be among the first to know when tickets to the event - which sold out last year to the tune of over 600 attendees! - become available.
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Finally Home Program Helps 127 Find Home at
Second Street Studios
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First Community Housing's Geoff Morgan, left, talking with some of the new residents of Second Street Studios
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We had the pleasure of attending the Second Street Studios grand opening on August 23rd. 134 apartments of permanent supportive housing are changing the lives of 134 families thanks to the efforts of First Community Housing and their committed partners.
Of all of the remarks that were made that day the ones that arguably carried the most weight were the words from some of Second Street Studios' residents - all of whom had experienced homelessness and all said a few words about the hardships they experienced that they don't have to experience any longer because of affordable housing. One of the residents was Ralph, who we introduced you to in
our May/June issue.
Housing Trust not only provided a predevelopment loan to First Community Housing, but our
 Finally Home program - which provides security deposit grants to help those experiencing homelessness secure an apartment - went to work too - providing security deposits for 127 out of the 134 apartments - and Ralph's was one of them.
Our Finally Home program receives funds through the Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot - which will be celebrating its fifteenth year on November 28th.
We'd love for you to take part in t
his wonderful Thanksgiving Day tradition in downtown San Jose because we believe that moving those experiencing homeleness into safe, secure and sustainable housing opens the door to a better life. Please r
egister for the Turkey Trot today at
svturkeytrot.com
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