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Amazon is helping fund affordable housing at the Spring District in Bellevue, Wash. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota)
Amazon announced that it is giving $100 million to support affordable housing efforts in Bellevue, Wash.
The contribution is part of Amazon’s $3.6 billion Housing Equity Fund for affordable housing in cities where it has a large corporate presence: the Seattle region, Washington D.C., and Nashville, Tenn.
Amazon said the $100 million contribution will help “accelerate the production of affordable housing for low-to-moderate income families” in Bellevue, according to a press release. There is a focus on projects supported by the city and its transit-oriented sites.
The announcement Thursday coincided with a groundbreaking of a new affordable housing community in Bellevue’s Spring District developed by BRIDGE Housing, which Amazon is helping support.
Amazon has already helped create or preserve more than 1,400 homes in Bellevue. The company has committed $780 million for affordable housing in the Seattle area since 2021.
As Amazon and other tech companies have grown dramatically and attracted high-paid workers, some of the Seattle region’s leaders and residents have blamed the companies at least in part for an affordable housing shortage.
Seattle is one of the priciest cities in the U.S., and housing costs are about 50% higher compared to other cities, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data cited by the Seattle Times.
The affordable housing crisis in King County is “deepening and unprecedented” with housing construction not keeping up with population growth, according to the Housing Development Consortium.
Bellevue Mayor Lynne Robinson speaking at an Amazon event last year. (GeekWire File Photo / Taylor Soper)
Amazon has quickly grown its footprint in downtown Bellevue after sparring with Seattle lawmakers in recent years over corporate tax initiatives. Bellevue is the focus of much of the company’s future growth in what it calls its Puget Sound headquarters region.
Amazon opposed a per-employee payroll “head tax” the Seattle City Council passed in 2018 (it was repealed), and soon later relocated thousands of employees to Bellevue, where it currently has 12,000 corporate workers and plans to eventually employ 25,000 in the city.
The announcement on Thursday comes just a few weeks after Seattle voters approved a new tax on big businesses such as Amazon that will fund a social housing developer. Amazon contributed $100,000 to an alternative ballot measure that would have used an existing payroll tax to fund the development of social housing in Seattle.
Amazon held an event in Seattle last year to announce an additional $1.4 billion to the Housing Equity Fund. Robinson and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell spoke at the event.
Last year, Amazon contributed $68 million to 120 Washington state community partners.
In 2023, Amazon was among the supporters of the Seattle Housing Levy, which was approved.
