Dive Brief:
- Meta is giving $50 million to kickstart an affordable housing district in downtown Sacramento for students, faculty and staff at California State University, Sacramento, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week.
- The project will involve the demolition of three state-owned buildings and follows a 2019 executive order to utilize excess state property to create more avenues for affordable housing.
- The project will also fund new STEM facilities, a School of Public Affairs and an artificial intelligence center, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Making sure students can actually afford to live where they learn is essential,” Newsom said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
As the nation wades through an affordable housing crisis, some college students are struggling to find a place to live. A survey released last year by the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University found that 48% of college students reported experiencing housing insecurity and 14% experienced homelessness.
Sacramento has been ranked among the most expensive places to live in the U.S. Several major tech companies have acknowledged their impact on housing affordability. Along with Meta, Google and Apple have funded housing development. Last year, Amazon hit a milestone of 10,000 affordable housing units built or preserved in the Puget Sound region after it pledged in 2021 to help boost supply.
Since Newsom’s 2019 executive order to utilize excess state property for affordable housing, the state has added nearly 4,300 housing units across 32 projects in various stages of development, according to the governor. The state last year launched a dedicated portal for developers to fast-track bidding on such projects.
CSUS is in the master-planning phase of the downtown project and is also considering adding a boutique hotel for student families, researchers and others affiliated with the school.
“I believe these investments will help strengthen our communities and support the next generation of leaders and innovators,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.
