Here Are Some of the Leading Funders Tackling the U.S. Affordable Housing Crisis

The U.S. is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 40% of renter households — or 19 million people — are cost-burdened, meaning that they spend more than 30% of their income on housing and utility costs. About 12 million Americans are severely cost-burdened, spending at least half of their income on rent, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies found.

While housing has long been an issue, this crisis has only grown worse in recent years. Between 2017 and 2022, tenants across the nation saw their rents rise an average of 18%, according to Pew Research Center. And experts predict prices will continue to rise this year, though likely not at the same rate that they did in 2022. Additional studies have also found that low-income renters and Black and Latino renters are more likely than others to be cost-burdened.

A number of private funders are working to address the affordability crisis, providing grants for both immediate support for low-income renters, as well as grants to address the root causes of the issue, including housing policy, housing shortages and wages that haven't kept up with rising costs.

To that end, here’s a sampling of some of the top funders and funder collaboratives working on housing and opportunity in the U.S.

Funders for Housing and Opportunity

Launched in 2018, Funders for Housing and Opportunity (FHO) is a funder collaborative that works to improve housing options and life opportunities for all Americans. It does this by investing in three strategy areas: policy, advocacy and organizing; narrative change; and elevating what works. FHO prioritizes those who are “precariously housed,” meaning people experiencing homelessness and those that pay more than half of their income on rent.

FHO’s founders are the Annie E. Casey, Bill and Melinda Gates, Conrad N. Hilton, Ford, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, JPB, Kresge and Oak foundations, and the Melville Charitable Trust.

To date, FHO has awarded approximately $18 million. Some of its grantees include Keep Illinois Home, Housing Justice for All, Nevada Housing Justice Alliance, Speak Up!, and Housing Narrative Lab.

Funders Together to End Homelessness

Funders Together to End Homelessness is membership-based organization focused on housing justice, providing resources, as well as networking and learning opportunities for members.

The organization has approximately 175 members. These include the Ahmanson Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the California Endowment, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the Weingart Foundation, and Melville Charitable Trust, among many others.

Funders Together to End Homelessness works through four areas of impact: programming, the Funders Together network, public policy and advocacy, and organizational sustainability.

Melville Charitable Trust

The Connecticut-based Melville Charitable Trust is the largest foundation in the U.S. dedicated to ending homelessness. It splits its funding between Connecticut-based work to end homelessness in the state and national efforts to create a better policy environment.

In addition to its support of Funders for Housing and Opportunity as well as Funders Together to End Homelessness, Melville Charitable Trust provides major investments to Frog Hollow Neighborhood, Partnership for Equitable and Resilient Communities, and A Way Home America. Other grantees include HouseUS, National Fair Housing Alliance, National Coalition for the Homeless, Invisible People and National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

Ford Foundation

For years, the Ford Foundation has been funding organizations that work on housing-related issues. One example of this work is its Just Cities and Regions program, which ran between 2018 and 2021, focused on housing insecurity and invested in organizations that worked in civic engagement, housing advocacy and technical assistance.

One of Ford's focus areas in its mission investments in U.S. affordable housing. As of September 2020, Ford has committed $72 million to affordable housing, with more than 19,000 affordable housing rent units preserved.

In 2021, Ford joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide a total of $7.5 million in seed funding to launch the HouseUS Fund, which works to address the root causes of housing inequality through its support of base-building, movement infrastructure and federal campaign work.

Some of Ford's grantees include the New York Communities Organizing Fund, the Housing Partnership Equity Trust, and Center for Neighborhood Technology, among many others.

McKnight Foundation

The Minnesota-based McKnight Foundation is a family foundation that works to advance a more just, creative and abundant future for all Minnesotans. Through its Vibrant and Equitable Communities program, McKnight seeks to cultivate a fair and just housing system. Its grantmaking priorities in this space focus on increasing political will and public support for government investments in affordable housing, supporting project pipelines and resource efforts to make it easier and faster to produce and preserve affordable housing, and catalyzing housing-oriented wealth-building efforts like financial products, development practices, and new models of ownership.

Past grantees include the Family Housing Fund (FHF), HOME Line, Northcountry Cooperative Foundation, Minnesota Housing Partnership (MHP), Minnesota Equity Fund and the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.

Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

One of the Hilton Foundation's areas of focus is homelessness in Los Angeles County. Hilton works to address the systemic barriers that lead to chronic homelessness in the region by partnering with community advocates, nonprofits, city, county and state governments, and other private funders. The foundation's current focus in this space includes emphasizing permanent housing services and making systems and services people-centered.

Hilton funds programs to prevent new homelessness, as well as those that move people into permanent housing. That includes funding for education and advocacy efforts for state and national policies to expand opportunities for both short-term and permanent housing in the county. It also provides grants to improve data quality, sharing and use to make informed decisions.

Its Phase I strategy, which lasted from 2012 to 2016, focused on establishing solutions to chronic homelessness in the county and developing consensus around putting these solutions into practice. The program cost about $49.1 million. Its Phase II strategy ran from 2016 to 2020, and set out to improve system functionality, coordinate new and existing public resource commitments and scale up interventions. Phase II program costs were $81.3 million. Its third phase, named Strategy25 will run from 2021 to 2025, and will build on previous successes by further investing in prevention, racial equity and mental health, among others. The estimated program cost for Strategy25 is $175 million.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

CZI's approach to funding housing affordability in California includes producing more housing, preserving existing housing, protecting residents from displacement and preventing homelessness. It supports efforts to build a sustainable supply of housing by funding organizations like Partnership for the Bay's Future, a funder collaborative that works to protect tenants and to produce and preserve affordable homes in the Bay Area. CZI also supports community-led organizations, as well as legislation and research that protect residents' rights and guidance on new paths to homeownership. It also works to create a sustained movement for housing reform by helping to foster cross-sector collaboration between philanthropy, technology and advocacy groups to build political and public will to change laws, policies and narratives to improve housing access.

CZI provides both general operating grants, as well as program support. Grantees include Abundant Housing LA, Affordable Housing Now, Bay Area Housing Advocacy Coalition, CA FWD, California Calls, California Coalition for Rural Housing, and Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, among others.

Other major funders working in this space include the Harvey and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, the Ballmer Group, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. More information on funders focused on housing can be found here.

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