In Mountain View’s North Bayshore neighborhood, where land abutting Google’s headquarters comes at a premium and the average home is priced close to $2 million, a 100-unit affordable housing development opened its doors this spring.
Developed by Eden Housing, La Avenida Apartments is one of the latest projects financed in part by Measure A — the $950 million affordable housing bond passed by Santa Clara County voters in 2016. Its tenants include veterans, seniors, formerly homeless residents and those making less than 60% of the area median income.
With a $78 million development price tag that equates to roughly $780,000 per unit, Eden Housing President Linda Mandolini said the La Avenida project would never have been built if it weren’t for Measure A dollars. Neither would the other 240 affordable units across three projects in San Jose that Eden Housing has either completed or has in the works, she said.
“Measure A money allowed us to be competitive, to buy a site in that geography that we wouldn’t have been able to buy if the county hadn’t been a participant,” Mandolini said. “We would have been way out bid by a market rate developer.”
After nine years, the nearly $1 billion affordable housing fund has nearly dried up as the county has already made plans for the remaining $58.9 million that the Board of Supervisors has yet to allocate.
So did the measure deliver on what it promised to voters nearly a decade ago?
County officials originally set a goal of 4,800 new homes at several different levels of affordability. And while some projects have yet to break ground, the county has approved funding for 5,976 new units. The bond measure has also helped acquire and rehabilitate seven other housing developments — some of which were previously market-rate housing — totaling 689 units.
Measure A funds are currently projected to aid in the creation of 6,665 new affordable homes in Santa Clara County — roughly 38% more housing than county officials had originally hoped.
“I think people thought it was going to be hard for us to reach the 4,800-unit goal,” said Consuleo Hernandez, a deputy county executive with Santa Clara County. “We don’t control land use and to be honest, we weren’t known as a lender. I think people are surprised that we exceeded the goal.”
It’s become increasingly more expensive to build affordable housing in California. A recent study from the nonpartisan research organization RAND found that building publicly subsidized affordable housing costs 1.5 times more than market rate housing.
Of the 5,976 new homes that Measure A is currently projected to help build, it’s expected to cost an average of $788,972 per unit, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis.
Noni Ramos, chief executive officer of Housing Trust Silicon Valley, said that Measure A ultimately helped accelerate the development process.
Developers often need to cobble together different subsidies — known as “capital stack” — in order for an affordable housing project to pencil out. Measure A funds were just one piece of the larger puzzle, with the county contributing on average nearly $14 million, or just a fraction of the overall development cost, to each project.
“Developers knew they could go to the county, they could apply for the funds and there was some level of understanding what the process was and understanding the timing of that process,” Ramos said.
The Housing Trust played a key part in that process as an early lender, helping developers with pre-development and acquisition financing. Ramos said the nonprofit lent about $155 million to Measure A projects, with a little more than half of projects receiving that funding.
“With Measure A, the county would come in earlier than construction closing, they would then fund the project and allow the developer to be able to repay our loan, which allows our loan to then recycle into the next project,” Ramos said. “That’s what our funds often do, they’re teeing up these projects so then they can be funded by Measure A types of capital as well as public sector sources at the state and the local level.”
Ray Bramson, the chief operating officer of Destination: Home, credited the many partnerships for the county’s ability to exceed the goal. The nonprofit has raised $300 million in private capital since 2018 that Bramson said was an essential component, filling in where Measure A funds weren’t eligible.
“That meant funding a planning position at the city of San Jose who was focused on expediting deeply affordable and supportive housing developments or that meant a little extra money that was needed to get a project over the line,” he said in an interview. “Our money on its own couldn’t have accomplished any of it, but because it was another ingredient in this larger supportive housing system, it all came together and created really what was a massive undertaking and brought so many homes.”
Another one of those partners is the Santa Clara County Housing Authority. While the agency is serving as a developer for several Measure A projects, their main role has been leveraging Section 8 Project Based Vouchers.
The county’s Citizens’ Oversight Committee, which advises how the bond money is spent, wrote in a recent report that the “success of Measure A projects has a great dependency upon obtaining federal vouchers,” while also raising concerns around the “growing uncertainty” of future vouchers. President Donald Trump has proposed making drastic cuts to rental assistance programs in the federal government’s upcoming budget.
Preston Prince, executive director of the Housing Authority, said that they’re aiming to provide roughly 3,000 vouchers that will be distributed across 94% of Measure A-funded developments. The vouchers are a critical piece of the financing, helping developers compete for low-income tax credits and ensuring that tenants pay lower rents while still allowing the project to be profitable for a developer.
“There will be hard decisions about how we take this limited dollar and support what’s happening in the community,” Prince said.
While Measure A is expected to exceed the original objective of building 4,800 new homes, county officials admit they did fall short in reaching two of the initiative’s other goals.
The first was funding a development in each of the 15 cities and towns in the county, but four locales — Los Gatos, Saratoga, Los Altos Hill and Monte Sereno — currently don’t have a Measure A-backed project. County officials, however, are in discussions about funding potential developments in Los Gatos and Saratoga.
The county is also likely to come up short on its goal of building 1,600 units for rapid rehousing, which serve as a temporary spot for homeless individuals before they move into permanent housing. There are 671 approved units of this type.
Hernandez, the deputy county executive, said that when they embarked on Measure A, the priority was on permanent supportive housing — deeply affordable homes with additional support services often for those who are chronically homeless. The county is ultimately expected to exceed its goal of 1,800 permanent supportive housing units, having approved 1,940 units to date.
The concept of rapid rehousing — and its financing structure — was also a newer idea at the time, making it a harder sell for developers and lenders, Hernadez said.
“In our community it’s really important because you have a percentage of people in rapid rehousing programs that can’t afford the rent after they graduate from the program and this allows them to graduate from the program and stay in the unit, ensuring that they don’t become homeless again,” she said. “Now everybody’s on board, but we don’t have the money.”
What comes next for public financing for affordable housing in Santa Clara County is unclear. Bay Area leaders last year, citing dwindling support for new taxes, removed a $20 billion regional housing bond from the ballot right before the August deadline. East Bay Assemblymember Buffy Wicks resurrected the idea earlier this year, aiming for the 2026 election, but the bill hasn’t had much movement since being sent to the Senate in June.
In the meantime, Bramson, the Destination:Home executive, said that their private partners need to step up and make deeper investments as the county continues to be resourceful until a more permanent funding stream is found.
If another housing bond does make its way onto a future ballot, he feels like the county has proven to be “good stewards,” which should give residents “a vote of confidence for why additional investment should come.”
“This is a community challenge so we need a community solution,” Bramson said. “And that means everybody at the table.”