The reflexion of the main house seen through the window of an accessory dwelling unit in the backyard of a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
Student Jacob Murillo, left, sits on the couch of an accessory dwelling unit behind a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. Facebook contributed money to a new ADU program to help deal with the housing crisis. Students from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park helped build the program. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
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Joshua To, founder of Soup, center, stands inside an accessory dwelling unit behind a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. To owns the property where the unit is located and lives in the home across the backyard. Facebook contributed money to a new ADU program to help deal with the housing crisis. Students from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park helped build the program. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
Rosie Inostrosa, right, pulls Elizabeth Aviles, center, and Arlyne Nava, left, from a swing near an accessory dwelling unit behind a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. The students are graduating seniors at East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy. Facebook contributed money to a new ADU program the students helped build. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
An accessory dwelling unit behind a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. Facebook contributed money to a new ADU program to help deal with the housing crisis. Students from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park helped build the program. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
Student Nataly Manzanero Perez, right, smiles as she tries to open a window next to Mia Palacios, left, at an accessory dwelling unit behind a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. The students are sophomores at Sequoia High School. Facebook contributed money to a new ADU program the students helped build. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
From left, students Nataly Manzanero Perez, Mia Palacios, Elizabeth Aviles and Deborah McKoy, Executive Director and Founder of the UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools, stand in the kitchen of an accessory dwelling unit behind a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. Facebook contributed money to a new ADU program to help deal with the housing crisis. Students from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park helped build the program. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
An accessory dwelling unit behind a home in Menlo Park, Calif., on Monday, May 20, 2019. Facebook contributed money to a new ADU program to help deal with the housing crisis. Students from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park helped build the program. (Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group)
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MENLO PARK — When 20 local high school students walked into Facebooks office last year and laid out their plan for solving the regions affordable housing shortage, they didnt really expect the tech executives in the room to listen.
But the Facebook team was moved and helped turn the students idea into a $1.1 million reality — a pilot program to fund four small backyard granny flats for low-income residents in East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Facebook will contribute $325,000 to the effort, and Menlo Park-based nonprofit Soup will put in $775,000.
“Its surreal to kind of see what we talked about actually happening,” said 16-year-old Nataly Manzanero Perez, a sophomore at Sequoia High School in Redwood City.
The money will finance low-interest loans for low and moderate-income homeowners who couldnt otherwise afford to build a granny flat and might struggle to get traditional financing. When the granny flats, also known as accessory dwelling units, in-law units or casitas, are complete, they must be rented out at below-market-rate to low-income families — simultaneously creating new affordable housing and providing extra income to the homeowner who builds the unit. Its the latest attempt by Facebook, often blamed for driving up housing prices by flooding the area with highly paid tech workers, to tackle the regions crippling affordable housing shortage.
The pilot is a partnership between Facebook, Soup and affordable housing developer EPA Can Do. The students who inspired it are part of an organization called Youth — Plan, Learn, Act, Now, or Y-PLAN, which incorporates the housing crisis and other civic issues into students lesson plans. The students spent months researching housing conditions in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto, walking neighborhoods and interviewing residents, as part of a Facebook-backed study. They then presented their findings to the tech company and Menlo Park City Council. One of their main suggestions was to build more casitas.
“It was like, Oh, wait a second, here is something that the youth are asking for that we can actually get started on relatively soon,” said Maya Perkins, Facebooks strategic initiatives manager.
Facebook and its partners will fund three units in East Palo Alto backyards and one in Menlo Parks Belle Haven neighborhood, ranging in size from about 600 to 1,000 square feet, with two or three bedrooms. The units each will cost between about $200,000 and $350,000 to build. Construction hasnt started yet, but EPA Can Do and Soup have submitted permit applications for three of the units.
The backyard units will be funded either by three-year loans or 30-year loans, depending on the homeowners needs. Once the loans are paid off, that money will go back into the program to fund more backyard units
For the duration of the loan, the units must be kept afRead More – Source
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