Housing Accelerator Fund Launches Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund to Deliver Affordable Homes Faster through Construction Innovation
San Francisco, CA – February 28, 2025
The Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) is proud to announce the first projects approved to receive funding through the Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund (ICCF), a significant milestone in advancing construction innovation for affordable housing. This groundbreaking initiative fast-tracks development by providing better financing solutions, helping to deliver much-needed homes more efficiently. The ICCF represents a bold step forward in tackling the housing crisis in the greater Bay Area and beyond.
With an initial revolving loan pool of $10 million, which includes a $3 million Program-Related Investment (PRI) from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and a $1.25 million Financial Assistance Award from the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, the ICCF will accelerate the delivery of hundreds of affordable homes in the next three years. This revolving capital will be strategically redeployed to maximize impact, enabling the HAF to scale the fund to meet growing demand. Homes funded through the ICCF will be dedicated to serving extremely low- to low-income households, addressing a critical need in the region.
Ivory Innovations, a nonprofit dedicated to catalyzing high-impact innovations in housing affordability, recently selected the Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund as a top 25 finalist for its annual Ivory Prize. The Ivory Prize is an award recognizing ambitious but feasible solutions to housing affordability and is designed to award innovators for their efforts and provide material support to advance their work.
ICCF’s first planned investment is a $2.5 million loan to support Cleveland Commons, a 104-unit senior housing community at 60 W. Hamilton Ave in Campbell, CA. Developed by Charities Housing Development Corporation in partnership with Santa Clara Methodist Retirement Foundation, Cleveland Commons will provide deeply affordable homes for seniors, including units reserved for residents with disabilities and veterans. The project utilizes volumetric modular construction, with Dahlin Group as the architect, Volumetric Building Companies (VBC) as the modular factory partner, and Nibbi Brothers as the general contractor. ICCF predevelopment funds will help this project realize the full impact of modular construction by making early investments through a coordinated design and building approach, paving the way for completion in 2028.
Charities is experienced with modular development, having completed the Parkside Studios project in Sunnyvale, and is committed to cost and time-saving goals. “Charities Housing and the Santa Clara Methodist Retirement Foundation are grateful to have Cleveland Commons serve as the first project to receive financing through the Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund,” said Mark Mikl, Executive Director. “We believe funding like the ICCF and modular construction methods can help us and others develop more cost-effectively in the future. ICCF funding makes it possible to lower costs and accelerate the construction schedule which allows us to serve those with the greatest housing needs.”
Nibbi Brothers also brings extensive modular construction experience, including the recent successful completion of the Sango Court project in Milpitas with Resources for Community Development (RCD). This 102-unit affordable housing development leveraged modular construction, with Autovol as the manufacturer, to achieve significant cost and timeline efficiencies—completing the majority of construction in just nine weeks of factory time and assembling onsite in only 12 days.
The ICCF harnesses the power of industrialized construction, a method that leverages factory production techniques to increase efficiency and reduce construction timelines significantly. Projects utilizing industrialized construction in California have demonstrated impressive results, delivering homes 10-50% faster and at costs 10-40% lower than traditional methods. “Innovative construction methods that reduce development costs are critical to advancing housing affordability solutions, as they can stretch limited housing financing further while reducing build time,” said Ruby Bolaria Shifrin, Head of Community at CZI. “We’re thrilled to support HAF as they launch the Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund and can’t wait to see the impact this fund will have in expanding affordable housing in our community.”
A significant barrier to the widespread adoption of industrialized construction has been the need for substantial early-stage investments, which traditional lenders often hesitate to finance. To address this challenge, HAF collaborated with U.C. Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation and Gray Impact Consulting to conduct extensive research, including over 100 hours of interviews with key stakeholders such as developers, architects, contractors, and factory operators. The result is a loan product designed to overcome these financing barriers, allowing developers to cover critical early costs, such as factory deposits, before securing permanent financing. With this purpose-built product, developers can fully realize industrialized construction’s cost and time-saving benefits.
“We must develop strategies that lower costs and fast-track production to make meaningful progress towards supplying the affordable homes our region needs,” said Rebecca Foster, CEO of the Housing Accelerator Fund. “This new financing tool will expand the number of projects utilizing industrialized construction, which, in turn, will build capacity within the industry – creating further opportunities to realize cost and time savings as factories, developers, architects, and contractors gain more collective experience.”
HAF is continuing to collaborate with the Terner Center to ensure the Fund’s effectiveness. Project budgets and schedules will be monitored at critical milestones during pre-construction and construction to document the results of industrialized construction. “The Terner Center’s extensive research into industrialized construction finds that modular building methods have the potential to reduce the time and cost of housing development, but these benefits can be lost without complementary interventions in the capital stack to support projects,” said Ben Metcalf, Managing Director of the Terner Center. “Efforts such as HAF’s Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund hold great promise to unlock the potential benefits of these innovations and accelerate solutions to the ongoing housing crisis.”
In addition to Cleveland Commons, there are several other high-impact projects in the ICCF funding pipeline, including EAH Housing’s 330 Distel Circle development. Distel Circle will be the first 100% affordable community in Los Altos, and will contribute 90 units across a mix of studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments serving individuals and families earning between 30-80% of area median income (AMI).
Developers interested in ICCF loans should visit www.sfhaf.org/borrow to view the programmatic term sheet. Funders interested in expanding the ICCF should reach out via info@sfhaf.org.
About Charities Housing: We are a mission-driven non-profit that focuses on affordable housing development and operations and has been serving the lowest levels of affordability for families, individuals and seniors in our community for the last 30 years. Charities Housing currently operates in excess of 1,500 apartment homes in Santa Clara County and with the help of all our public and private partners, we have in excess of 2,000 additional apartment homes under various stages of development or predevelopment that will be delivered into the community over the next few years. For more information, visit charitieshousing,org or call 408-555-8300.
About the Housing Accelerator Fund: The Housing Accelerator Fund is committed to the preservation and expansion of quality affordable housing for economically disadvantaged individuals and families throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area. An innovative nonprofit public-private partnership and certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), HAF works with community-based organizations, local governments, and private and philanthropic institutions to provide powerful new financing tools that accelerate housing solutions for the Bay Area’s most vulnerable residents. This includes the newly launched Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund as well as the Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund and other tailored financing tools. Visit us at www.sfhaf.org.