Dear Friends
November 2021

Preserving Affordable Housing. Keeping Families Housed.

As part of our vision for an East Bay where everyone has a place to call home, EBALDC launched the Housing Acquisition Fund (HAF) in 2015. HAF is designed to preserve and expand quality affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families and individuals in the East Bay. One of those properties is Highland Palms. Highland Palms was purchased in 2017 with support from The San Francisco Foundation, NeighborWorks Capital and Community Housing Capital, and later refinanced with Enterprise Community Loan Fund, the City of Oakland, and First Republic Bank. In June,... Read more
Press Releases
June 2020

East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation’s CEO Joshua Simon to Step Down from Organization After Nearly 20 Years in Leadership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 10, 2020 Press Contacts:  Layla Crater, layla@change-llc.com, 310-804-3107 Jill Kunishima, jkunishima@ebaldc.org, 510-606-1823 OAKLAND, CA — As part of a defined succession plan, East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) today announced that Joshua Simon will step down from the position of Chief Executive Officer in October 2020 after spending nearly two decades as a champion for EBALDC’s unique approach to community development. EBALDC’s Board of Directors will launch a selection committee to identify EBALDC’s next CEO. “Joshua Simon’s innovative and bold leadership has propelled EBALDC’s vision of... Read more
News
March 2020

Preserving Oakland as the Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive City it is Today Through Our Housing Acquisition Fund

“Our long-term vision is for an Oakland that works for everyone, particularly the residents that have made it the vibrant, diverse, inclusive city it is today.” – Joshua Simon, CEO of East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC).  Achieving this vision for Oakland will require all of us to think differently about how to tackle the affordable housing crisis we’re facing. That’s why in 2015, EBALDC launched the Housing Acquisition Fund — an innovative and replicable new model for preserving and expanding quality affordable housing in Oakland.  We are excited to... Read more
Commercial Real Estate
August 2019

Grants Support Housing, Homeless Programs

From Look InsideKP
Kaiser Permanente announces 2 new grants in line with its mission to create healthy communities through housing support. Pictured, Melissa Keller, center, and her 2 children, Makayla Griego, left, and Kayden Keller, right, play on the swing set at the Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa homeless shelter. As part of its commitment to support affordable housing and homeless transition programs in Northern California, Kaiser Permanente announced 2 new grants of $1 million each to organizations in Oakland and Santa Rosa. In the last year, Kaiser Permanente has committed over $30 million... View article
Media
June 2019

Innovative Programs by Geisinger Health and Kaiser Permanente Are Moving Providers in Unexplored Directions in Support of Proactive Clinical Care

From Dark Daily
These initiatives are a call-to-action for clinical laboratories to contribute their expertise in support of wellness programs Two of the largest healthcare systems in America are moving in non-traditional directions to proactively address certain healthcare populations. Most recently, Kaiser Permanente announced it will be investing millions of dollars to tackle homelessness and the disease outbreaks associated with it. The health system is even investing in a housing complex in Oakland, Calif., which it hopes will help patients in that area who face housing insecurity. Kaiser’s new direction mirrors a similar project by Geisinger Health designed... View article
Media
April 2019

Why housing is now a health issue for Kaiser Permanente

From San Francisco Business Times
Over the eight years that Brian Hopkins has lived in his East Oakland apartment, he’s seen many of his neighbors wind up on the streets. “You know tent city? That was a lot of the people who lived on this block,” said 35-year-old Hopkins, who currently works staffing events at venues like Levi’s Stadium and the Coliseum. “I know them personally, friends’ moms, aunties.” Kaiser Permanente noticed the bulging homeless population in its hometown, too. It also knows the toll it takes on people’s health, with a recent study in a major medical journal finding... View article
Media
March 2019

In Oakland and elsewhere, health care is investing in affordable housing

From Marketplace
When an apartment building sells in gentrifying parts of Oakland, California, tenants often brace themselves for the worst. Rent hikes, disruptive renovations and evictions can follow. But when one building recently changed hands, city officials and housing activists celebrated. Kensington Gardens, a 41-unit building in the working-class, immigrant neighborhood of San Antonio, was sold last November. “I was feeling somebody was going to get it and they were going to raise the rent,” said Ameria Lipscomb, who lives in a first-floor studio in Kensington. Tenants there generally pay below-market rents. When the building... View article
Media
February 2019

Advocacy and More: Philanthropy’s Role in Two Big New Initiatives to Tackle the Housing Crisis

From Inside Philanthropy
Housing affordability may be the toughest challenge now facing major metro areas in the U.S., especially in affluent coastal areas. Last month, California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, made this issue a top priority, committing significant new resources to housing in his proposed state budget. Other public leaders have been stepping up, too, including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Pressure is also growing on both business and philanthropy to do more to ensure housing affordability. And in recent weeks, we’ve seen dramatic movement along these lines. One such effort is focused... View article
Media
January 2019

$500 million affordable housing fund launches in the Bay Area

From Housing Wire
Housing affordability has become a tremendous concern for many Americans navigating expensive West Coast housing markets, but a new partnership could provide Californians with significant relief. Various housing advocates, tech and business leaders recently announced the launch of a regional public-private housing partnership that could potentially become the Bay Area’s largest investment toward affordable housing. The partnership intends to provide $500 million in order to solve interconnected challenges of housing, transportation and economic opportunity in the Bay Area. “The scope of the housing crisis requires bold action. And it also requires that all sectors... View article
Media
January 2019

Bay Area consortium pledges $500M for affordable homes

From Mountain View Voice
Several Peninsula-based nonprofit organizations and companies are part of a new public-private partnership that aims to secure $500 million to help build more affordable housing in the Bay Area, the group announced Thursday. Known as Partnership for the Bay’s Future, the collaboration is being funded by 10 organizations in the philanthropic, business and community-advocacy sectors. The initiative is billing itself as “one of the country’s largest investment funds to address the regional affordable housing crisis,” according to a press release. “The housing crisis is the most serious issue facing our region —... View article
Media
January 2019

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has a $500 million plan to ease the Bay Area housing crisis

The housing affordability crisis in the Bay Area has been growing worse, with no end in sight, for over a decade. This year, though, may be the one in which some of the most powerful players in the region step up to do something about it. On January 15, the Oakland-based healthcare nonprofit Kaiser Permanente committed more than $50 million to preserve affordable housing in the city. And nine days after that, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the Ford Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) introduced a large fund... Read more