Addressing the root causes of community instability through high-quality, affordably built housing and strategic community investments so people have the freedom to live, hope, create and thrive.

The Affordability Project (TAP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit creating a new model for building affordable workforce housing across the United States. We believe America's housing crisis is not simply a construction problem—it is a capital market problem. By reducing the cost of financing and development, we can build high-quality housing more affordably and pass those savings on to the educators, first responders, healthcare workers, nonprofit professionals, and other essential members of our workforce who keep our communities strong.

TAP was founded in San Francisco in 2021 because it was our hometown—and because it represents one of the most difficult and expensive housing markets in the nation. We believed that if a new approach could succeed there, it could succeed anywhere.

Today, our first 100-unit workforce housing community is shovel-ready, with more than 700 additional homes in our development pipeline. These projects have advanced without government funding or traditional for-profit investors. Instead, they are powered by philanthropic support and the generous contributions of experienced real estate professionals who have donated their expertise in service of a shared mission. Together, this model has reduced projected development costs to less than half those of comparable San Francisco projects while dramatically accelerating the path from concept to construction.

But our goal has never been to build a single development—or even to focus on one city. Our vision is to transform how affordable housing is financed and delivered across America.

To scale this work, TAP is developing an innovative philanthropic housing fund designed to lower construction financing costs, attract impact-first catalytic capital, and help communities nationwide produce affordable workforce housing more efficiently. Rather than relying solely on public subsidies or maximizing investor returns, we seek to unlock philanthropy as a powerful source of patient, mission-driven capital that reduces costs before the first home is built.

Our first project demonstrates that this model can succeed in one of the country's most challenging housing markets. The next chapter is proving it can scale—through partnerships, philanthropy, and local leadership—to serve communities across the nation.

We believe that affordable housing is essential infrastructure for thriving communities. Every teacher, nurse, firefighter, service worker, and nonprofit professional deserves the opportunity to live in the communities they serve. By reimagining how housing is financed, designed, and delivered, The Affordability Project is working to make that future possible—not just in San Francisco, but throughout the United States.