Amazon announced on Wednesday that it will spend more than $2 billion (12.92 billion yuan) over the next five years to build affordable housing in Arlington, Virginia, Seattle and Nashville, Tennessee, to help ease the housing shortage in the United States.

Amazon has more than 75000 employees in its Seattle headquarters, more than 1000 in Arlington (the second headquarters under construction) and Nashville (the operation center under construction), and plans to have at least 5000 employees in the latter two regions within five years.

Amazon said most of its investment will be through low-cost loans to build or maintain affordable housing, and it will also provide grants to public institutions and minority led housing organizations.

Catherine bull, the community development director of Amazon's charity "We can't control how the housing market responds to the entry or expansion of big employers, but we can play a role in how Amazon's growth affects local communities, especially as we expand the company's business, and we're doing our best to address the problems that arise," Buell said

In 2019, a number of large technology companies committed to investing in affordable housing, especially in the San Francisco Bay area. In many big cities, especially on the west coast, employment growth has outpaced the supply of new homes.

Google has committed $1 billion to build affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay area, Apple has committed $2.5 billion to build affordable housing throughout California, Microsoft has committed $750 million to build affordable housing in Seattle, and Facebook has committed $1 billion to build affordable housing in Silicon Valley and its surrounding areas.

For the world's largest technology companies, the phased commitment to affordable housing is not expected to have much impact on their profits. These companies typically generate tens of billions of dollars or more a year. According to people familiar with the matter, Amazon does not expect to profit from these housing investments or enjoy preferential tax treatment.

Many housing advocates welcomed the moves, saying that employees of big employers like technology companies are better paid and can afford rapidly rising house prices than local residents. At the same time, they said that these investments are not expected to completely help solve the housing shortage of low-income people in metropolitan areas.

Amazon said it plans to build or retain more than 20000 low-cost homes for low - and middle-income families. So far, the company has spent about $380 million to help the Washington Housing Society acquire a multi family property in Arlington, near Amazon's planned second headquarters. Amazon also pledged about $185 million in loans and grants to help the golden County Housing Authority retain about 1000 apartments in the Seattle area.

Before making its latest commitment, Amazon's biggest housing investment was $100 million for the construction and operation of a shelter in its Seattle campus for Mary's place, a local homeless service organization. The shelter opened in March last year. (small)

Source: Netease technology report, translated by Baidu