In Spring 2019, Housing Trust’s TECH Fund made what was then the second-largest loan in our history – $13.75 million to help Eden Housing buy a site on Auzerais Avenue that checked all the boxes for what strong and affordable housing should be.
Today some of our team took part in the groundbreaking celebration to commemorate Auzerais Apartments – the 130 upcoming units of affordable homes that will be built on the site – with half of the homes reserved for permanent supportive housing.
As we mentioned in the April 2019 funding announcement, the site is transit-oriented with a tall ‘T’: the spot is a five minute walk to the Children’s Discovery Museum VTA light rail station, close to two bike share stations, and is a fifteen-minute walk to Diridon station.
It’s all about how to pull together all the different financing sources, all the partners, all the community members
– Noni Ramos, CEO, Housing Trust Silicon Valley
As with every affordable housing development that makes it to this stage, it had a lot of committed partners dedicated to the project. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, City Councilmember Raul Peralez, Office of Supportive Housing Director Consuelo Hernandez, Executive Director of Santa Clara County Housing Authority Preston Prince spoke of the resources that helped Auzerais apartments along – and Santa Clara County’s Measure A had its own place at the podium since the positive effects of the 2016 affordable housing bond measure continue to grow.
Private financing had its turn at the microphone too, as Eden Housing’s own Linda Mandolini – herself a founding board member of Housing Trust – mentioned the role TECH Fund played to purchase the site before our own Noni Ramos spoke, and thanked all of our current investors for TECH Fund’s impact to date: 4,579 homes financed and $117.8 million invested to date thanks to partners including Cisco, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Google, The Grove Foundation, LinkedIn, NetApp, PureStorage, and The Sobrato Family Foundation.
Eden Housing’s communications team organized a great event – one that was catered by iJava Café, a local business on the corner of Auzerais and Delmas. While we were waiting for the event to start, we met Jim, one of the workers there who was excited about the development. He even showed us a little covered parklet iJava built in their parking lot made specifically for the constructions workers so they could easily sit, have lunch and not have to remove their muddy boots.
We also got to meet Brandon Weaver, a 23 year-old staffer for State Senator Dave Cortese’s office, who spoke before the crowd about the Senator’s long commitment to affordable housing but his own relationship with home in his own right – his own generation. “People my age don’t even think we’re going to have a home in this state, that we’re going to have to leave,” he said. “What good are these high paying jobs in the Bay Area if you have to commute from Sacramento?”
He also said we should do more of these. We agree.
Let’s do more.
