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Google United States

Google Backs San Jose Housing Project as Part of Funding Pledge (bloomberg.com) 48

Posted by msmash from the marching-forward dept.
Google is providing a $5.3 million loan to The Kelsey, a two-year-old nonprofit that's seeking to develop affordable housing for people with disabilities. From a report: The financing will help jump-start a development in San Jose, the first specific project that the tech giant has backed since announcing a $250 million fund dedicated to addressing the San Francisco Bay Area's affordable housing shortage. As Google and other tech titans look to alleviate a situation that they're often blamed for exacerbating, many of the details of their initiatives are still being ironed out. While the low-interest loan to The Kelsey is relatively small, Google said the investment is a model for its future work. Google is also lending its name to an organization with fresh ideas on housing, according to Chris Taylor, Google's finance lead for affordable housing investing. "We're a big entity and people assume we did a lot of due diligence -- which we did -- and, hopefully, that's a feather in their cap," he said. Google said earlier this year that it was committing $1 billion to easing a regional housing crisis.
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Google Backs San Jose Housing Project as Part of Funding Pledge More

Google Backs San Jose Housing Project as Part of Funding Pledge

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  • So that's what... (Score:3)

    by kaatochacha ( 651922 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @01:54PM (#59358944)

    Two houses?

    • Re:So that's what... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MyFirstNameIsPaul ( 1552283 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @02:13PM (#59358990) Journal
      This is my issue with all of these calls for subsidization. There is a recent trend of traditionally tax-and-subsidize-only solution proponents who are now on the side of promoting "market-affordable" housing. My suspicion is that they sat down and mathed out just how much it is going to cost to house everyone genuinely having issues affording a space, which is pretty much everyone under $65k/yr. This probably sends their budgets up over $1 trillion based on current housing prices, and they obviously aren't going to get that much money from anyone, ever. Then, even when trying to get a single unit of a multi-unit dwelling to be qualified as "low-income", the cost of that unit must be spread out amongst the other units, but this now adds a very real amount of money to the purchase price of the other units, which - can you imagine - makes the units a genuinely tougher sell, meaning that for everyone not low income the unit prices are higher and yet fewer developers are interested in investing.
      • Developers are already dealing with other indirect costs for housing. For most developments they need to provide parking which eats up land that could be used for housing. They may have to pony up to develop a park, recreational facility or community farm in the area. My point being that developers are accustomed to having to distribute "affordable unit" costs. They may even get tax incentives for including affordable units. Some cities, like Boulder CO, may even insist on including affordable units, or

        • Oh come on! Somehow the rest of the country is able to do it. What's different? Crazy California political policies.

          • Oh come on! Somehow the rest of the country is able to do it. What's different? Crazy California political policies.

            The property tax backlash in the 1970s and proposition 13 are part of the problem.

            • Prop 13, at best, makes for a minimal increase in real prices. There are a whole bunch of governments salivating at the notion of its repeal, and they are daily infecting every economically illiterate person they get an audience of (especially "journalists"). There is nothing that impacts increase in real prices as much as the hard limit on new residential units (NRUs) assigned by each jurisdiction, arbitrarily determined a la communist central planner, and the urban growth boundary nonsense passed by the s
        • If the affordable unit was previously going to be sold for $1,000,000, but after being marked affordable, so "only" $250,000, that $750,000 price difference has to come from some place. If it does not, then investors are not going to invest. You think they are going through all that trouble and losing money? They can invest anywhere, and, in fact, there are hardly any developers in the region compared with elsewhere in the country with similar population sizes. Your other arguments are red herrings.
      • Would be a shame if subsidized housing burst the CA housing bubble....a damn shame

  • I don't think this is enough (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @01:56PM (#59358946)
    people massive underestimate just how much money the Federal Government spent from 1940 - 1985 (when the subsidies started getting cut in the name of fiscal responsibility).

    The Feds were doing all the really expensive parts of land development. They graded and prepped the land for houses, built the roads and ran the power, gas and water lines. It was billions of dollars. And they did it for middle class communities.

    Investors aren't going to spend all that money to sell homes to people making $40-$60k/yr. The margins just aren't there. Instead they'll buy up existing properties and rent them out. If we relax regulations they'll make Frank Trump style slums for Woody Guthrie's kids to sing about.

    This is why the Federal Government got involved in home building in the first place. It's also a huge part of what created the post WWII middle class. It's how people who make under $300k/yr build wealth. Buy a house so you're not pissing away 25-40% of your wages on rent.

    • Great, now its the Federal Government's responsibility when the policies you voted for blow up in predictable fashion. Californians have no one to blame for this mess but themselves.

      • Californians have no one to blame for this mess but themselves.

        When the tech companies really took off and brought lots and lots of jobs into Silicon Valley and San Francisco the fait accompli was done.
        I used to live there and still go back to visit often and I have seen how bad it has gotten since the 90s.
        The traffic is worse, it is too crowded, the housing crisis can't be fixed, etc;

        Before Google and FB really took off, it wasn't that bad.
        And having people not wanting to sell their homes because of prop 13 and become landlords in perpetuity didn't help eithe

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Window dressing (Score:4, Informative)

    by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxrubyNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @02:21PM (#59359020)

    Until you address the law of supply and demand in a meaningful way this is nothing but window dressing. Tech companies could readily address these issues by moving jobs within the United States to areas with lower housing costs. There is no reason that they need to have those jobs in Silicon Valley proper.

    The alternative is to do something meaningful about the housing supply by removing or severely limiting height and setback regulations for buildings. In other words they need to adopt deregulation to allow the free market to work. The problem here is the NIMBY types don't want their property values to drop and will fight tooth and nail to prevent this.

    It is utter madness to continue to increase demand without increasing supply and expect prices to do anything other than rise. Continuing the status quo shows an utter contempt for the working class that Silicon Valley depends on for everything from emergency services to janitors. Janitors don't code and nobody cares if they have to sleep in their car or see a dentist when they need to.

    • > moving jobs within the United States to areas with lower housing costs. There is no reason that they need to have those jobs in Silicon Valley

      If there is "no reason that they need to", I wonder WHY the companies spend twice as much hiring in SV. An engineer in Dallas needs half the salary of an engineer in California, and the office space for that engineer costs half as much here. The companies could save a lot of money by hiring elsewhere. There must be reasons they are laying twice as much as they

      • I honestly wonder why they do. I've traveled all over the US for work as well as some overseas. I've traveled to California for tech work dozens of times for one thing or another over the years. What made Silicon Valley what it was years ago has long since vanished.

        For example you mention Dallas. I spent a year in San Antonio doing tech working for a company and had a very nice apartment for a lot less than I could get in Minnesota. I hear about the costs in California and I that makes Minnesota look cheap.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Maybe its time all these people who want cheaper housing in the bay area got politically active and threw their support behind any local candidates who promised to end all the anti-development regulations and allow this stuff to be built.

      If there is one thing I know about US politics its that its possible for a big enough (and politically active enough) group of people to convince politicians to support their point of view and get what they want. Its just a matter of getting enough people together that the

  • Gentrification (Score:3)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @02:39PM (#59359074) Homepage Journal

    I live here, I work in tech, so I'm somewhat protected I suppose. I own a house, so again, no worries there. What worries me though is San Jose can't do much except waste money.

    https://www.ktvu.com/news/mill... [ktvu.com]

    San Jose’s budget shows the city spent about $14 million on homelessness. Much of that money -- $12 million -- goes toward rental subsidies, administrative costs, and crafting plans for new affordable housing developments.

    What’s left – about $2 million -- is directed toward running homeless shelters and providing clothing, food, and medical care to people without a home.

    So a lions share of money meant to help homeless goes towards BS. Employee salaries, rental subsidies (which goes to friends of the government) and committees. San Jose is somewhat world famous now for their homeless tent cities.

    At this rate only about $74k of that $5.3m will actually go to address housing.

    • The solution to excessive government bureaucracy is not even more government bureaucracy. The solution is for the government to get out of the way and let the free market work!

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • The person who lives upstairs from me has her rent paid for by San Francisco while she parties every night. She is part of a program where SF pays people to rent apartments in other states (I guess rent in SF is to expensive for the city to afford).
  • People are losing their homes, their lives, and being marched out of an entire area. What will you do when it's your turn?

  • how about they start paying taxes instead ?

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