Amazon has refilled its multibillion-dollar Housing Equity Fund with an infusion of money that it projects will preserve and create an additional 14,000 affordable housing units.
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The e-commerce giant committed to adding another $1.4B to its affordable housing fund, bringing the total fund size to more than $3.6B, Amazon announced Tuesday.
Amazon launched it as a $2B fund in January 2021 with the goal to preserve and create 20,000 housing units. The fund, which was expected to take five years to allocate, exceeded its original goal in less than four years, and the company says it has created or preserved over 21,000 units of housing.
The company projects the new funding would bring that total to 35,000 units, spread across three markets: the Pugent Sound region around its headquarters, the D.C. region around its HQ2 and the Nashville region around its major office there.
“We created the Amazon Housing Equity Fund to preserve and create homes that will remain affordable for the next century, ensuring families can stay in their communities for generations to come,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. “We hope that our additional commitment — coupled with other public and private resources — will help make a meaningful difference for thousands more people and enable these regions to thrive.”
The additional funds have not been designated, and applications are not being accepted yet, the Washington Business Journal reported. More information about the fund will be released later this summer.
Of the 21,000 homes created, 92% were near some type of public transportation, and 41% of the homes have two or more bedrooms for families, the company says.
In Arlington, Virginia, the fund created and preserved more than 9,500 units and increased the city's affordable housing stock by 23%. In Puget Sound, Washington, the fund helped pay for more than 8,600 units and increased the housing stock by 30%. In Nashville, over 3,100 units were created.
Several affordable housing developers said at a Bisnow event in D.C. in April that Amazon's fund has been a critical tool to fill financing gaps that have widened as interest rates and construction costs have risen.
In August, The Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority acquired a site in Tysons, Virginia, that it plans to use for two, 20-story towers that will include 516 apartment units. The developer closed on a $55M below-market-rate loan from Amazon's Housing Equity Fund that will help the project known as Dominion Square be developed all at once rather than in phases.
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