SAN JOSE CALIF. – Housing Trust Silicon Valley, a nonprofit community development financial institution (CDFI) in San Jose, is announcing a significant new investment in its TECH Fund – an investment vehicle created to enable philanthropists and greater Bay Area employers to be a part of the affordable housing solution. In the first ever collaborative effort, new TECH Fund investor Pure Storage and early investors LinkedIn and Cisco are together bringing $20 million to help build affordable homes in the greater Bay Area.
TECH Fund was launched in March 2017 to help break a key barrier to building affordable housing: providing flexible financing to allow affordable housing developers to compete for sites on the open market that may otherwise go to market rate homes or offices. These funds have been used to purchase land next to transit in downtown San Jose, close to jobs in Mountain View, preserve and rehab existing properties occupied by low-income residents in Redwood City, and other endeavors.
Built initially to create 10,000 affordable housing opportunities in the first ten years, TECH Fund has already started about 1,500 homes across 15 developments across Silicon Valley – with more than half 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 up to 60% of the area median income (AMI) or less.
Today’s new investments consists of $5 million each from Pure Storage and LinkedIn, and $10 million from Cisco – bringing the total in the fund to $52 million.
“We’re committed to playing our part in solving the challenge of affordable housing,” said Charles Giancarlo, Chairman and CEO of Pure Storage. “As a Bay Area company, we believe we have a responsibility to help tackle the local housing crisis head-on. That’s why we’re working closely with Housing Trust, Cisco, and LinkedIn.”
“The work being done by Housing Trust Silicon Valley to help the Bay Area address economic inequality and homelessness matters deeply,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “We’re continuing to invest in the TECH Fund to not only make a difference in affordable housing, but to do so in a way that delivers results quickly for the people who need it.”
“Partnering with other organizations gives us the ability to create an even greater impact,” said Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco. “We are excited to join the leaders from Pure Storage and LinkedIn to increase the capacity of the TECH Fund, because we recognize the scale of the local housing crisis and the impact this solution can have in increasing the availability of affordable housing.”
“We’re thankful to Pure Storage for joining forces with LinkedIn and Cisco to make a greater impact,” said Julie Mahowald, Acting CEO of Housing Trust Silicon Valley. “TECH Fund has now passed $50 million, laid the groundwork for 1,500 affordable homes, and momentum is building in our efforts. Imagine how much further we can go if more organizations step in.”
ABOUT CISCO
Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow’s digital opportunity today. Discover more at thenetwork.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.
ABOUT LINKEDIN
LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful and transforms the ways companies hire, market, and sell. Its vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce through the ongoing development of the world’s first Economic Graph. LinkedIn has offices around the world.
ABOUT PURE STORAGE
Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG) helps innovators build a better world with data. Pure’s data solutions enable SaaS companies, cloud service providers, and enterprise and public sector customers to deliver real-time, secure data to power their mission-critical production, DevOps, and modern analytics environments in a multi-cloud environment. One of the fastest growing enterprise IT companies in history, Pure Storage enables customers to quickly adopt next-generation technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to help maximize the value of their data for competitive advantage.
ABOUT HOUSING TRUST SILICON VALLEY
Housing Trust Silicon Valley (Housing Trust) is a nonprofit community loan fund based in San Jose that works to improve the quality of life for low-income people in the greater Bay Area by increasing affordable housing opportunities. Since 2000, Housing Trust has invested $183 million in programs that help everyone from the homeless to renters to first-time homebuyers – creating more than 17,000 affordable housing opportunities serving over 30,000 of our neighbors. It is the first nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) to receive a Standard & Poor’s rating (AA-) because of its strong capacity to meet financial commitments. For more information visit www.housingtrustsv.org
ABOUT TECH FUND
TECH Fund (Tech + Equity + Community + Housing) is an initiative created by Housing Trust Silicon Valley to create opportunities for philanthropists and large Bay Area employers to be part of the affordable housing solution. The fund began in March 2017 with an initial investment from the Cisco Foundation that has since been followed by investments from Grove Foundation, LinkedIn, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pure Storage and Sobrato Family Foundation. Housing Trust to date has raised $52 million for the TECH Fund to be revolved over the course of a ten-year investment period – at the end of which TECH Fund investors receive a modest return on their investments in addition to the original investment being repaid and, most importantly, having created 10,000 affordable housing opportunities during that time. For more information visit www.housingtrustsv.org/tech-fund/
Contact: Julie Quinn, Dir. Of Resource Development, Housing Trust Silicon Valley julie@housingtrustsv.org 408-436-3450 x 223
Contact: Michael Norris, Communications Manager, Housing Trust Silicon Valley michael@housingtrustsv.org 408-4363450 x 241