{"id":12955,"date":"2019-09-05T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=12955"},"modified":"2022-10-09T07:21:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T11:21:48","slug":"big-tech-plays-both-friend-and-foe-to-affordable-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/big-tech-plays-both-friend-and-foe-to-affordable-housing\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Tech Plays Both Friend and Foe to Affordable Housing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Billion-dollar tech companies, most notably centered in and around Silicon Valley, are simultaneously the cause of and potential solution to soaring housing costs leaving an increasing number<\/a> of people homeless.<\/p>\n

As Malo Hutson, director of Columbia University\u2019s Urban Community Health Equity Lab, opined<\/a>: \u201cHow much cash is Apple sitting on? How much cash is Google sitting on? To me, not to do something is immoral.\u201d<\/p>\n

So just how moral has the tech sector been? Let\u2019s look at both sides of the fickle relationship between affordable housing and America\u2019s tech sector.<\/p>\n

Big Tech at Odds With the Little Guy<\/h4>\n

San Francisco has been described as the canary in the coal mine that is the housing crisis in America. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, based in the Bay City, told CNBC\u2019s Sara Eisen<\/a>: \u201cSan Francisco is kind of a train wreck. We have a real inequality problem. It\u2019s because of the tech sector \u2026 We have to look at San Francisco and say here\u2019s the best technology example in the world and yet the worst homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The link between billion-dollar tech companies with sky high IPOs and unaffordable housing has existed for some time. And this makes sense. People with higher incomes are often willing and definitely able to pay more for housing. If sellers can get more money for properties, they will understandably start to increase prices. Compound this with limited supply and increased demand and one can easily see why housing prices are making home ownership in the Bay Area unobtainable to many non-tech sector workers.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at an example of this: Apple employees. Ten years ago, the gap between the average Apple employee\u2019s home and the average San Francisco home was approximately $150,000. Five years later in 2015, the gap is closer to $400,000. The trickle-down result? The Atlantic<\/a> puts it this way: \u201cWhen Apple Employees move in, housing prices go up.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Cupertino-based company is not single-handedly accountable for the spike in housing, this is a case in point of the housing crisis Big Tech helped build. And when your company\u2019s own employees can\u2019t afford<\/a> to live where they work? Well it might be time to do something.<\/p>\n

Big Tech to the Rescue?<\/h4>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s that last point motivating West Coast technology companies to take a renewed interest in affordable housing. Companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook have been active players in housing development and low-income housing philanthropy. Let\u2019s take a look at a few examples.<\/p>\n

Google<\/h4>\n

Back in 2018, Google made a splash when it revealed big plans<\/a> for a development in Mountain View, California. The vision consists of office, retail, public and residential space. It\u2019s that residential space that is particularly significant \u2013 6,600 units, 20 percent of these qualifying as affordable housing. Despite the dystopian vibes of the conceptual artwork associated with Google\u2019s project, it\u2019s lining up to be one worth watching.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Microsoft<\/h4>\n

Early in 2019, the Redmond tech giant pledged<\/a> $500 million in an attempt to address the affordable housing shortages afflicting the Puget Sound region. Significant for several reasons (it was the largest pledge in the company\u2019s 44-year history, for example!), most of the money will be directed towards increasing options for low- and middle-income earners. Some cynics state that Microsoft is trying to pressure policy makers into doing their own bidding. That\u2019s because 95 percent of the money pledged will actually make money<\/a> for the company. Here\u2019s hoping the injection of funds will have an overall net positive effect on housing affordability in one of America\u2019s most expensive communities.<\/p>\n

Facebook<\/h4>\n

Not one to be left out of a philanthropy party, Facebook announced<\/a> its own $500 million housing fund just a few days later. The ambition of this one is to collaborate with local nonprofits and real estate developers to build 8,000 new homes in the SF region over the next 10 years to satisfy affordable-housing criteria.<\/p>\n

What People Are Saying<\/h4>\n

As good as philanthropy makes us all feel, there are noteworthy concerns about why Big Tech is investing into housing. As Vice\u2019s Ankita Rao explains, the more dependent housing is on dollar injections from these technology giants, the more influential they become in shaping where and how people live.<\/p>\n

Joel Kotkin of Chapman University in California says: \u201cThese companies are so dominant. There\u2019s only a few people who have money, and even in doing things that are necessary, it\u2019s going to be affordable housing they want.\u201d And seeing that California is facing such a dramatic dearth in housing, the usual checks and balances that would be in place to resist new power players in what should be governmental policy building are absent.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, age-old wisdom states one shouldn\u2019t look a gift horse in the mouth. It\u2019s just hard to tell what this particular horse really wants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billion-dollar tech companies, most notably centered in and around Silicon Valley, are simultaneously the cause of and potential solution to soaring housing costs leaving an increasing number of people homeless. As Malo Hutson, director of Columbia University\u2019s Urban Community Health … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":12956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[389,300,305],"tags":[769,253,11735,7208,515,508,11734],"coauthors":[9560],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19615,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12955\/revisions\/19615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12955"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}