What role can tech giants play in affordable housing?

Over the last few years technology giants have announced major pledges to affordable housing efforts in the cities where they office. Starting in January 2019, companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Google all pledged substantial resources to address the housing crisis—$750 million, $1 billion, and $1 billion respectively. Apple surpassed them all with a $2.5 billion pledge in November 2019, and this year Amazon almost matched it with its $2 billion Housing Equity Fund. While these pledges are welcome in major tech centers in Washington state and California’s Bay Area, the companies are simultaneously expanding in cities across the country.

Boulder is home to several large tech companies: Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon all have a presence here. Of course so do Google and Twitter, both of which often make headlines with plans for expansion. 

With its Colorado offices based in Boulder, Google has more than 1,500 employees in the state. In 2020, it grew its Pearl Place Campus and in September 2021, the company announced it purchased 125,000-square-foot of office space at the Rêve development at 30th and Pearl Street across the street, which includes luxury apartments. In November 2020, Twitter announced it is expanding its Boulder footprint by leasing a 65,000 square-foot office space in the Railyards at S’Park development in Central Boulder.

When a tech company decides to office in any area, they attract highly paid employees, who often relocate and can put extra demand on local housing supply, often driving up costs to the detriment of middle-, low-, and extremely low-income earners. Large corporations didn’t create the affordable housing crisis plaguing so many jurisdictions around the country, but they have intensified it, says Andrew Aurand, vice-president of research at the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), which focuses primarily on housing for renters existing below the federal poverty line.

“No community has an adequate supply [of affordable housing],” he says. “That problem is exacerbated in communities that have large tech companies, or large companies in general, moving in and increasing the demand for housing.”

Citing studies from a few years ago before the pandemic, Aurand adds, regions with high income inequality have greater challenges in affordable housing, as the market tends to respond to demand at the higher end and is slower at the lower end.  

“The market on its own is not going to produce housing that is affordable to extremely low-income or low-income renters,” he says.

The presence of technology companies in a region can come with benefits, but it’s often associated with growth that’s unequally distributed. Now these tech companies are promising to help, but how exactly will they do that?

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