In 2017, Housing Trust provided a $2 million pre-development loan to MidPen for Chestnut Square, an affordable housing development in Livermore.
Friday, August 20, 2021 was the grand opening – and our own Noni Ramos was among the speakers, along with Mayor Bob Woerner of Livermore, County Supervisor David Haubert, MidPen’s Matt Franklin, and others.
Noni singled out our 2015 Loan Pool for making the Housing Trust loan possible: Western Alliance Bank, East West Bank, AvidBank, Beneficial State Bank, Manufacturers Bank and Heritage Bank of Commerce.
“The opportunity for each and every one of our neighbors who get to live in Chestnut Square is one that creates even more opportunities. And I’m not speaking only as someone who works in this field, but as a person who grew up in affordable housing and experienced first-hand the impact of having a safe and stable place to call home can make on the rest of your life.”
– Noni Ramos, Chief Executive Officer, Housing Trust Silicon Valley
Chestnut Square is made up of Chestnut Square Senior Housing, which provides 72 affordable apartments for seniors, and Chestnut Square Family, which provides 42 affordable rental homes for families. Chestnut Square Family started construction in April 2019, welcomed residents last September, and was 100% occupied by February 2021.
These events remind us how many hands must come together to make home possible – and we must give a shout-out to our own Pam Berkowitz, our Vice President of Multifamily Lending and Business Development, who worked on the loan when she was a Senior Loan Officer.
In addition to Housing Trust’s lending, other funders of the project included the City of Livermore, Alameda County Housing & Community Development, the Housing Authority of the City of Livermore, Wells Fargo, CalHFA, the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, California Community Reinvestment Corporation, the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, and a California HCD IIG Grant. We also must thank MidPen for the door-to-door community outreach that began in 2016 which secured strong community support.
Congratulations to all who helped make Chestnut Square happen – we are honored to be a part of this work!