Yesterday Amazon announced they are investing 1.4 billion in funding to create and preserve 14,000 homes near three major U.S. cities to allow for more affordable housing, which is part of the company’s Housing Equity Fund started in 2021.
The fund initially started with $2 billion in order to finance the creation and renovation of 20,000 homes. This latest announcement expands that goal to $3.4 billion to fund fund more than 35,000 homes. Amazon claims they’ve already surpassed their original goal two years ahead of schedule.
The projects are currently being developed in Washington State’s Puget Sound region; the Arlington, Virginia/National Capital region; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Though Amazon says its fund is going towards affordable homes, near the end of its press release they note their initial investment actually went to mostly apartments, per some of the attached pictures. Amazon claims they are now piloting affordable housing.
While our initial $2.2 billion primarily supported affordable rental housing, through the Fund we are also piloting other ways to increase access to affordable housing. For example, in 2023 we 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, we’ll continue to pursue new ways for the Fund to create positive housing outcomes for low- to moderate-income residents.
Amazon wrote
Amazon boasts that unlike many “while many new multi-family developments today consist primarily of studio and 1-bedroom units, 41% of the homes we’ve funded so far have two or more bedrooms to serve families.”
Amazon said in its press release that “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.”
The company added: “We’re also intentional about creating greater economic equity by supporting diverse-led developers. We do this 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. We’ve invested over $25 million to support the program, which has graduated 38 diverse developers to date, and we’re continuing to fund this program as part of today’s announcement.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement:
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. 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.
Amazon has increasingly been carving its way into the housing industry. In 2019 they started selling tiny homes and small cabins for less than $20,000.
Earlier this year, The WinePress highlighted how Amazon is also selling foldable $30,000 tiny homes that quite literally can be unfolded and lived in.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
If you had only read the mainstream headlines you’d think Amazon was building and refurbishing homes, but then you read that actual press release and only at the very end do they admit they’ve mostly been renovating apartments. So really this is just fake and contrived charity.
1 Corinthians 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
But this shows you the mindset here. An “affordable rental” is now equated to “affordable housing.” In other words, it’s glitzing-up “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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It’s what they did in the Soviet, Russia & China, then Europe at large. Not to mention the inner city high rise welfare & elderly housing….now derelict & practically unlivable. At the time, they sold it just like this as ‘cutting edge’ & ‘cool’.
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That second ecohouse gives you about zero privacy or protection! Good grief.
The tiny home movement was there for quite a bit. With these tiny homes, you can say that you own a home, though small.