“At home, 10,000 units are a big milestone,” said Alice Shobe, worldwide director of Amazon Community Impact, said The Seattle Times. “We went early to move quickly and we did that. I think the payment of those 10,000 units will show, especially in decades that the coming decades will come when that 99 years of affordability is required and we do not flip over the houses so quickly.”
The Amazon fund originally promised to support 20,000 units in Seattle, Nashville and Arlington, Virginia – cities where the company has a significant presence – but the company said last year that it had already surpassed the goal by financing 21,000 units.
Since then, Amazon has added another $ 1.4 billion to create 14,000 more houses.
In the Seattle area, the company has supported projects in neighborhoods where residents are confronted with the pressure of displacement.
Beacon Pacific Village-a complex of 160 units that tenants require to earn between 50% and 60% of the average income of the area open for the former Amazon headquarters.
“Having housing led by organizations for community development offers more culturally deep -rooted affordable homes for the community,” said Jade Yan, resident services manager at the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development AuthorityIt helped with the development of the project. “It’s just that crucial. Housing means stability and safety.”
The majority of Amazon’s support focuses on people who earn between 50% and 80% of the AMI, which is around $ 110,000 for a person in Seattle.
Shobe said the fund deliberately focuses on that reach.
“If you look at the workforce in the community, you have many teacher assistants and guards and other people who are unable to grant the rental prices that our region has reached,” she said. “So what we did is that we have really focused on that middle area.”
Other technology companies – including Apple” Meta” Google And Microsoft – have also launched housing funds. Some of these projects have been advanced while others have stalled because of local regulations, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Amazon has concentrated his developments in Seattle and the neighboring Bellevue, with the time that respective totals of 5,216 units and 1,486 units have built in these cities so far.
Shobe said that the investments have increased the affordable Bellevue housing stock by 31%.
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