Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) was created to address our community’s most challenging problems. Despite the area’s great wealth, residents are challenged by so much – lack of affordable housing, financial instability, the precarious safety and insecurity of immigrants and persistent gaps in student achievement. Through its discretionary grantmaking, the community foundation addresses these issues among others, including support for people to engage in civic affairs and the public decisions that impact their lives. SVCF recognizes that to achieve meaningful impact on these issues, collaboration is critical. By issuing requests for proposals (RFP), we hope to solicit the best ideas from nonprofits, public agencies, research institutions and community organizations serving San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and to partner together on solutions.

The focus of this RFP is on increasing access to affordable housing in our communities. We invite you to apply. Funding cuts for affordable housing programs at the federal and state levels have made the problem worse. This, combined with local regulations and exclusionary zoning practices, community opposition and high land costs is making it extremely difficult to build more housing. A serious imbalance between the jobs created and the housing available puts even more strain on the limited housing supply. Low-income residents are disproportionately priced out of quality housing and are at greater risk of being evicted.