Amazon announces $2.1 billion Housing Equity Fund
Ecommerce giant Amazon.com has announced a commitment of more than $2.1 billion in support of an in-house Housing Equity Fund and affordable housing initiatives in the Puget Sound region of Washington, as well as Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.

With the goal of preserving or creating more than twenty thousand affordable units of existing housing and new inclusive housing developments in the company's three "headquarters regions," the fund will provide $2 billion in below-market capital — in the form of loans, lines of credit, and grants — to developers of affordable housing. Initial investments include below-market loans and grants of $381.9 million to the D.C.-based Washington Housing Conservancy to preserve and create up to thirteen hundred affordable units on the Crystal House property in Arlington and $185.5 million to the King County Housing Authority to preserve up to a thousand affordable units or homes in Washington State.