In 2021, nonprofit developer Allied Housing received $1.5 million via a fund that Meta had set up as part of the technology company’s $1 billion commitment to affordable housing made two years earlier. The 59-unit affordable apartment building Allied planned — half of the units reserved for formerly homeless renters — was exactly the kind of project Facebook’s parent company hoped its commitment would get off the ground.
Within a year, Allied returned the money. Not because the project collapsed. Because the money wasn’t a gift—it was a loan, as was most of the money that Meta has invested into housing.
A $150 million loan fund for affordable housing, called the Community Housing Fund, is one of the only funding promises the company has kept as part of its 2019 announcement. A Bay Area News Group investigation found that Meta has largely abandoned its $1 billion housing pledge, having spent just $193 million six years in.
Executives cut most funding to the housing initiative in late 2022, according to three people with knowledge of the company’s decision-making who requested anonymity out of fear of professional repercussions. That year, Meta laid off most of the team and shelved plans for a second $250 million loan fund targeting middle-income housing. That money, along with another $332 million in committed capital, remains unspent.
Beyond the Community Housing Fund, Meta did fulfill some other parts of its plan: it gave out around $27 million in grants, and pledged $225 million in land around its Menlo Park headquarters, where it says housing will eventually be built. But the company has yet to complete the necessary predevelopment work required to eventually go vertical, and the city said the company hasn’t laid out a specific timeline for construction.
During the years the housing team was active, it struggled to gain buy-in for the initiative with executives focused on the company’s bottom line, the sources said.
Like many tech companies around Silicon Valley, Meta lacks a corporate charitable arm. As people inside the company were drafting a concept for the housing initiative to present to Meta’s board, they had to consider ways to invest in housing that also wouldn’t significantly drain the company’s balance sheet. The vast majority of the pledge, therefore, took the form of low-interest loans.
The Community Housing Fund was the first — and only — of Meta’s loan funds to get off the ground. It gave out loans of up to $15 million at a 2% interest rate — much lower than other loans — to projects with at least 20% of their units reserved for extremely low-income tenants, according to the fund’s description.
This fund was unique in that it financed developers early on in the process to help pay for site acquisitions and architectural drawings — a stage when the development has a high risk of not panning out, which is why traditional banks don’t get involved until later.
The housing initiative team considered this a win-win: Developers got cheap money to get their housing projects off the ground. Meta could get their money back in one to eight years, with a small return.
“It was a resounding success,” said Ray Bramson, chief operating officer of Destination: Home, a San Jose nonprofit aimed at ending homelessness, which partnered with Meta on the fund.
But the program was meant to go even further.
When the Community Housing Fund was launched, Meta had intended to keep the money recirculating — so that money repaid would be funneled into new projects, according to three people familiar with the Community Housing Fund who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared professional repercussions.
But those people say that Meta decided that once the original $150 million is spent, that money will not replenish the fund, but return to the company.
Meta has previously said that it is “an active partner in addressing the region’s housing shortage” and that it will continue to update stakeholders as it makes progress on its decades-long commitment.
So far, the Community Housing Fund is nearly spent through. According to Meta, the loans have supported 19 projects in the five core Bay Area counties, helping to get over 2,000 units entitled, with nearly half dedicated to those making less than 30% of the area median income, or $42,200 for a single person in Santa Clara County.
The vast majority of projects funded were in Santa Clara County, where voters had authorized a $950 million bond for affordable housing in 2016, which meant developers could pair Meta’s funding with public funds to get projects fully financed.
Meanwhile, few projects were pursued in Contra Costa County, which doesn’t have any ongoing funding source for affordable housing, and San Mateo County, where the high land costs make it even more difficult for affordable projects to pencil out financially.
So far, though, many of those projects have been stalled, and only a handful have opened to renters.