Microsoft-led housing effort cuts rents in Seattle suburbs

SEATTLE (AP) — A master's degree and a full-time job as a middle-school counselor weren't enough to help Shanon Baker land an apartment she could afford in Seattle's east-side suburbs. But a $750 million commitment by a local tech giant helped do the trick.

In August, Baker moved into her new apartment in one of three complexes recently purchased by Urban Housing Ventures, a partnership backed in part by Microsoft's affordable housing initiative. The group is cutting rents at 40% of the units in the three buildings, including Baker's fourth-floor one-bedroom overlooking Lake Washington, as part of an effort to make sure teachers, nurses and other middle-income professionals can live in the communities where they work.

The rent cuts are being accomplished without local public subsidies, but with a model designed to remain attractive to investors — an approach that could and should be replicated nationwide, its supporters say.

“Having this program has made it so I can afford to live here,” said Baker, 51, a counselor at Eastside Catholic School in Sammamish. “I don't want to commute too far. I like being in an area where I can walk a lot — there's restaurants and banks and dentists and hair salons and bars. It makes it very convenient.”

Microsoft launched the initiative two years ago to address a problem its own success helped create: As the region's tech industry has boomed and well-paid tech workers have driven up the cost of housing, even people with decent middle-income jobs have been priced out. Jane Broom, the company’s senior director of philanthropies, noted in a blog post Thursday that from 2011 to 2019, jobs grew 24% while housing only grew 12%; median household income rose by 34% while housing prices soared 78%.

Other tech giants, including Google and Apple, have also invested hundreds of...