Following its phenomenal success that reaped billions of dollars for the Mountain View-based search engine company, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has decided to share its vast fortune to nearby and not-so-near communities by sponsoring its version of an $86 million Low-Income Housing Tax Credit fund that would be utilized to develop and operate targeted seven affordable housing communities in California and some part of the Midwest states.
In collaboration with US Bank subsidiary US Bancorp (NASDAQ:USB) Community Development Corp (USBCDC), Google vice president and treasurer Brent Callinicos said that the corporate initiative is their answer to the prevailing voids in affordable housing investment seen in recent years.
In his released statement, Callinicos has expressed happiness that Google’s investment with USBCDC gave the company the opportunity to advance and realize its thrust of extending relief to numerous individuals who were incapable of availing quality housing arrangement.
On its latest Out of Reach 2010 report, the National Low Income Housing Coalition revealed that out of the 9.2 million renter households in the United States, only 6.1 million affordable housing units were being allocated by the federal and state governments to accommodate that segment of the country’s population.
The report also cited that the families sampled in the study were found to be earning only a measly 30 percent or even less of their respective areas’ predetermined median family income, further denying them of the fair chance to acquire respectable and reasonable housing arrangements.
Google said that the LIHTC fund would be used to establish an aggregate 480 affordable housing units through fresh housing projects in Waukegan, Illinois; Apple Valley, Minnesota; Des Moines, Iowa; Milwaukee, Wisconsin and in the selected California cities of Fontana, Palm Springs and Salinas.
The giant tech company gave assurance that only experienced and qualified LITHC property developers would tapped for the construction and completion of the rental communities while the USBCDC would be tasked to supervise the entire process and act as the lead agent responsible for leasing when the project reaches that stage.
US Bank assistant vice president for media relations Lisa Clark has enthused that the exciting and inspiring part of the LIHTC investment project was that Google’s initiative of financing affordable housing wasn’t only confined on its home state.
Clark reiterated the fact that the giant company has elected to go out of its way “by venturing outside of California and financing projects in the Midwest. And not only have they invested in affordable housing, they’ve invested in wind farms, too. Google is taking on a lot of socially responsible issues.”
Industry experts noted that the USBCDC-managed housing development fund is not the first Google-sponsored LIHTC investment project as in March 2010, the leading tech company gave out some $25 million that was course through with a community development entity of Union Bank.
That seed money eventually became part of the construction projects that saw the completion of Fair Oaks Plaza in Sunnyvale, California and the Regency Towers Senior Housing complex, located in Los Angeles County.