Amazon has committed an additional $1.4 billion to expand housing options in areas near its offices, including Arlington.
The funding, announced ahead of an affordable housing summit today (Monday) at HQ2 in Pentagon City, brings total investment in the company’s Housing Equity Fund up to $3.6 billion.
This initiative, previously budgeted at $2.2 billion, has helped spur progress on affordable housing projects in Arlington including Barcroft Apartments and Crystal House.
Carmen Romero, president of the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, credits Amazon with not only providing financial support, but also “helping keep affordable housing on everyone’s agenda.”
“They’re listening to us and wanting to hear what we want to do, and in this business, that’s hard to come by,” she said at the summit.
Amazon says its Housing Equity Fund has helped increase Arlington’s affordable housing stock by 23% since 2020, which tracks with county estimates. The company will be dividing the extra $1.4 billion across projects in the D.C. area, Seattle and Nashville.
How much of that goes to Arlington will depend on a variety of factors, Senthil Sankaran, the fund’s managing principal, told ARLnow.
“It’s about trying to be opportunistic, in terms of meeting the needs of each respective community,” Sankaran said. “It’s critical for us to hear from our public sector partners as to what their priorities are, so that we can best align.”
Amazon’s approach to housing investment has had wide-ranging social impacts, said Brian Jackson, president of LEO Impact Capital, developer JBG Smith’s impact investing platform. Insufficient housing, whether for lower-income or middle-income people, increases market pressures that lead to homelessness, displacement and overcrowding, he said.
“Thinking about this holistic view, Amazon has done what very few other capital sources are going to do, and it’s been really incredible for Arlington,” Jackson said.
The Crystal House project in particular helped answer an unmet need for affordable housing in Crystal City. Romero said such a project was her “dream” when Amazon first arrived.
However, she noted that the United States as a whole needs about seven million more homes to meet affordable housing needs.
“While we’re doing a great job regionally with the help of Amazon, we need to supersize it,” she said.
Responding to some of those concerns at today’s summit was U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). He acknowledged the need for more housing support at the federal level, which he said typically involves public-private partnerships.
“Housing was always going to be the next thing we were going to get to, and candidly, we got a housing crisis,” Warner said. “And it’s not just in Northern Virginia. It’s across the country.”
While Arlington continues to have some of the highest rent in the country, Sankaran said that with the additional $1.4 billion Amazon will continue seeking ways to help the county meet its affordable housing needs.
“I leave today with optimism because we have so many funders who are invested in this work, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to continue this work on Amazon’s part,” he said.
A full press release on the expansion of the Housing Equity Fund is below.
SEATTLE – Amazon today announced that it is committing an additional $1.4 billion in funding to the Amazon Housing Equity Fund, bringing the total to more than $3.6 billion to fund more than 35,000 affordable homes across the Puget Sound region; the Arlington, Virginia/National Capital region; and Nashville, Tennessee. The extension of the Housing Equity Fund underscores Amazon’s commitment to affordable housing and to helping thousands of families live closer to where they work or near transportation hubs, removing a major barrier to success.
In January 2021, Amazon launched the $2 billion Housing Equity Fund with the goal of creating and preserving 20,000 affordable homes across three of its hometown communities within five years. The Fund is designed to help moderate- to low-income residents access quality affordable housing. Amazon also announced today that it has exceeded its original goal two years early by providing $2.2 billion to create and preserve more than 21,000 affordable homes.
“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,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. “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 Housing Equity Fund supports affordable housing developments focused on households that earn 30% to 80% of the area median income. That often includes first responders, teachers, health care workers, and others who may not typically qualify for subsidies but whose wages haven’t kept pace with escalating rents.
Amazon is also intentional about creating greater economic equity by supporting diverse-led developers through the Amazon Housing Equity Accelerator, a free, eighteen-month program, designed to foster the careers of diverse real estate developers while lowering the barriers they often face. Amazon has invested over $25 million to support the program, which has graduated 38 diverse developers to date. Amazon is continuing to fund this program as part of today’s announcement.
The Housing Equity Fund’s Positive Impacts
The 21,000 homes that the Fund has already helped to create and preserve will enable more than 46,000 residents to access affordable housing, and the majority of this housing will remain affordable for a century. The Fund is also designed to place this housing in areas that will positively impact these residents’ quality of life. For example, 92% of homes funded are near bus or rail stations to reduce transportation costs. In addition, while many new multi-family developments today consist primarily of studio and 1-bedroom units, 41% of the homes funded so far have two or more bedrooms to serve families.
Here’s a snapshot of the progress to date across the Fund’s three communities:
- Helping create and preserve 9,500+ homes across the National Capital region and increasing Arlington, VA’s affordable housing stock by 23%.
- Funding a total of 8,600+ homes across the Puget Sound region in Washington and increasing affordable housing stock by 30% in Bellevue, WA.
- Funding over 3,100 affordable homes across the Nashville, TN region.
- Funding 32% of the projects in partnership with diverse-led developers from these communities.
Finding New Ways to Support Affordable Housing
While the initial $2.2 billion primarily supported affordable rental housing, the Housing Equity Fund is also piloting other ways to increase access to affordable housing. For example, in 2023 Amazon funded a $40 million program to make it easier for moderate-income residents to become homeowners, with the goal of creating generational wealth for historically underserved communities. Going forward, Amazon will continue to pursue new ways for the Fund to create positive housing outcomes for low- to moderate-income residents.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
