Our mission is to develop housing that people can afford at all income levels.

The Problem

Our cities have a housing problem. As populations rise, housing is getting more and more expensive. In most cases, we simply aren't developing housing fast enough. A recent study by the Association of Bay Area Governments shows that between 2007 and 2014, Alameda County failed to meet Regional Housing Needs Allocation for any income level.

And it's like this in cities of varying sizes across the US. This makes finding housing for those with average income extremely competitive, driving people further and further from their places of work and schools.

For individuals and families with below-average income the shortage frequently results in homelessness. Hundreds of thousands of people struggle with homelessness each year. Thousands more dealing with unemployment, mental illness, or disabling health conditions are in danger of losing their housing every day.

The Affordable First model is designed to address the housing shortage by developing more housing where it's needed, that people can afford at any income level.

Building strategy

The Affordable First strategy uses the profit from market-rate units to pay the development costs of affordable housing. Its able to do this by substituting a public entity for the investor, making the goal of the development growth and affordability, instead of just generating a profit.

By building both full price and affordable housing in the same development, we can use the profits from the full-price units to maintain the low-income homes at a reduced cost to the taxpayers.

The money generated by the market-rate units repays the initial investment and then helps to maintain the affordable units. Eventually even making enough profit to build new housing units and repeat the process.

Financial Strategy

Our plan not only creates affordable housing for county residents, it also creates profits and reduces costs. With this revenue comes the opportunity to reinvest in a housing fund and expand our efforts across the country.

Upfront Investment:

Here the public institution steps into the same role as an investor putting up startup capital.  This reduces the overall cost of the project and allows for more affordability. However, this strategy bears more upfront risk.