Microsoft: $250M more for affordable housing in Seattle area

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By GENE JOHNSON

SEATTLE (AP) — One year after Microsoft announced it was committing $500 million toward affordable housing in the Seattle area, it’s upping that by half.

The additional $250 million will provide a line of credit to help the Washington State Finance Commission finance about 3,000 additional units of affordable housing, Jane Broom, the company’s senior director of philanthropies, said in a blog post Wednesday.

Microsoft’s own success has helped the region boom economically, with Amazon and other tech companies expanding. But as it has, the cost of housing has skyrocketed. Homelessness is a severe concern, and even people with good middle-income jobs, such as teachers and nurses, have been priced out of the cities where they work.

Microsoft announced its $500 million commitment a year ago, saying that much of the money would provide market-rate or below-market-rate loans to developers who want to build affordable housing. Some was also to go toward grants to address homelessness, such as by providing legal help to those facing eviction.



FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2016 file photo, a man lies in a tent with others camped nearby under and near an overpass in Seattle. Microsoft has pledged another $250 million to address homelessness and develop affordable housing in response to the Seattle region's widening affordability gap. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/d27c04e0001ba0fda96574e2240dd3cc

[ancianita]

1. Finally. A small bit of corporate gentrification pays reparations. Give Gates a cookie.

Corporate reparations over loss of basic human needs should be part of the state and federal legal framework of this country.

Token effort, as in civil rights history, is not ever enough.

[LisaM]

2. Quit knocking down housing people can afford NOW.

Half the problem is evictions. They are knocking down affordable housing all over town and putting up ugly (yet expensive) housing in its place. There are plenty of luxury units available, BTW, so they don't NEED to build more of those, just leave be the people who can afford where they live now.

And tell the tech companies they CAN'T COME HERE if they won't pay taxes for the resources needed for a huge population influx. All services, including social services, are stretched to the absolute limit.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

3. Corporate socialism.

See if I have this straight:

Microsoft would have its hooks in a loan to a state government that apparently can't afford to provide affordable housing because corporations, their officers, stockholders, and employees don't pay enough taxes to help fund housing directly, and because their very existence caused severe gentrification in those areas needing affordable housing, all the while their extremely well-paid employees insist on dirt cheap imported products at Walmart, cheap food at McDonald's, low cost medical care, and quality education for their kids from schools starved of funding where those most needing affordable housing typically work.

Oh, but we dare not call this anything but philanthropy (which is tax-deductible).........

Did I miss anything?