Crystal City in Arlington by ERM1130 licensed under Creative Commons.

Amazon.com Inc. launched a new Housing Equity Fund earlier this month that will provide $2 billion to create and preserve affordable housing in Arlington, as well as Nashville, Tenn. and Washington State’s Puget Sound region - all places where the company is headquartered.

Another $125 million in cash grants will be given to minority-owned nonprofits, businesses and organizations to help find a “more inclusive solution” to the housing crisis impacting these areas.

Arlington, much like the rest of the Washington region, is in the throes of a housing crisis. But how much impact will the fund have in addressing it?

Arlington’s housing crisis

“The biggest housing challenge Arlington faces is preserving and building affordable housing, and Amazon is helping by creating a lot of affordable housing,” said Matt de Ferranti, Arlington County Board chair via email. “Our budget is hurting as we feel the pandemic economically, but our housing prices for homes and condos and any place to live in the area is still increasing as people think we are a good long term place to live in part due to Amazon. We need the housing right now to avoid displacement.”

Over the last 20 years Arlington has lost over 14,000 privately owned affordable homes as the value of homes rose between 2010 to 2018, Arlington government reports show.

In 2015 the Arlington County Board created an Affordable Housing Master Plan to address the county’s housing challenges and needs by 2040.

According to a 2019 Arlington Housing annual progress report, the number of Market Rate Affordable Housing units affordable to those at 60% of area median income increased by 531 units — but at the same time, the supply of units affordable to those making 60-80% of median income fell by 1,801 units.

Michelle Winters, Executive Director of the Alliance for Housing Solutions, an Arlington-based affordable housing policy organization, says Amazon’s latest initiative is a welcome and necessary step to fix housing in the county.

“I think it’s a really great role for [Amazon] to play – bringing this much money capital into the affordable housing system,” Winters said. “This is the level and scale of the kind of role that they should be playing.”

But Winters is quick to point out that addressing housing in Arlington will require more funds, better policies and laws to support growth, and addressing dueling ideas about who and what the county is.

“One of the challenges is that we are a suburb that is turning into a city-like community, and there’s a lot of people who still want the community to keep it’s suburban profile,” Winters said, “And that is clashing with probably a greater number of people who see it as an urban community.”

An Arlington nonprofit will get the first chunk of Amazon funds

The Washington Housing Conservancy, a local affordable housing nonprofit, is the first to take part in Amazon’s program. The organization is using $339.9 million in below-market loans and $42 million in grants from Amazon to help finance its purchase of Arlington’s Crystal House, an 825-unit apartment complex, to create or preserve up to 1,300 affordable homes on the property.

The Washington Housing Initiative, WHC’s finance partner along with Impact Pool, created by developer JBG Smith, provided real estate expertise and $6.7 million in additional loans, according to a press release issued by Amazon. ( A member of GGWash’s Board of Directors is also an employee at Amazon.)

As part of the sale agreement, Crystal House will be kept affordable for 99 years — longer than many similar agreements. JBG Smith will also manage the property on behalf of WHC. The Bethesda based developer leases part of its Crystal City property to Amazon for its HQ2.

“With Amazon’s support, we are advancing our vision for inclusive, mixed-income communities of racially diverse middle-income and low-income families and individuals, to live near their employment and access high-performing schools and community amenities,” Kimberly Driggins, Executive Director, Washington Housing Conservancy, stated in a press release.

The funds are meant to support families making between 30% and 80% of the area’s median income (less than $79,600 per year for a family of four).

King County Housing Authority in Washington State will also receive $161 million in below-market loans and $24 million in grants to preserve up to 1,000 affordable homes.

Outside of this first round, it’s still not clear how the distribution of funding and resources will be allocated, or how much of Amazon’s $2 billion fund will go toward housing in Arlington.