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Google Invests $86 Million In Low-Income Housing
- acconrad 16y agoWow, this screams "Philanthropic PR stunt to get people to forget they hated us for killing net neutrality with Verizon."
- pavs 16y agoThey killed net neutrality? When did the bill pass? I must have missed it.
- cschneid 16y agoI think there's a corporate equivalent of godwin's law. "The chance of a company turning into a bank is proportional to how big it is".
- aresant 16y agoSmart way to combat some of the recent PR trouble they've stumbled into with what clearly falls into the investment diversification category.
- ronnier 16y agoThis reminds me of an article I came across on HN a couple of months ago: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american-murder-mystery/6872/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american... "Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades."
- philwelch 16y agoSpoiler alert: When you tear down the projects and move everyone into the suburbs, the gangs go with them.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- _pius 16y agoI think this may be a smart move. It works from a charitable perspective, but it's also strategic for Google to keep an eye on the other side of the digital divide as more and more low-income households become wired.
- ahi 16y ago$86,000,000 / 480 units = $179,000/unit ?! Sounds like someone is getting ripped off. My guess it's the government with the low income housing tax credit.
- pragmatic 16y agoYes it does, at first. Low income housing ain't what it used to be. My wife works with low income families. Many of these residences are at least comfortably middle class. Some are quite nice and you'd never know they were "low income" unless you saw the sign.
- noodle 16y agovery true. where i used to live, there was a very nice looking, new complex being built. i went to check out the property and ask about when units were available, and it was low income housing. i made too much to qualify for a unit. and on the flip side of that coin, these units weren't any cheaper to rent than the regular ones in the area. in fact, they were nicer, and i thought they would be more expensive. perhaps you could say they were subsidizing luxury.
- qeorge 16y agoYou'd be surprised. Its been a while since I checked, but in 2003 it cost ~$140k to build a Habitat house in Winston-Salem, NC, not including the cost of the land. "Low-income" shouldn't mean shitty. Good construction is expensive, even on relatively small buildings.
- noja 16y agoDoes the typical American house have "good construction" though? Or does it vary by state. (In Europe construction seems to be extremely good quality, I'd like a comparison.)
- ctkrohn 16y agoDoes anyone know which part of Google organized the deal? The original press release is unclear. Google has a decent-sized treasury department; after all, they have billions of dollars of cash that needs a high-yielding home. Perhaps they viewed this as just a plain old investment.
- earl 16y agoFor a corporation with money to invest, housing isn't such a bad thing. There's a reason Metlife build stuytown.
- myth_drannon 16y agoCharity write-off.
- ryanmickle 16y agoMaybe Google can actually pull off free wi-fi, unlike its attempts in San Francisco.
- donaldc 16y agoThis is not the worst way to spend money, but really, if Google doesn't need the money for its business, it should just pay it back to its shareholders in the form of either stock buybacks or dividends.
- donaldc 16y agoI stand by this comment.
- patrickgzill 16y agoWill they wire it up with gigabit fiber to each unit?