Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Facebook today announced a pledge of $1 billion and a partnership with the state of California to help build more affordable housing, after the company contributed for over a decade to an influx of tens of thousands of highly paid technology workers that exacerbated the problem in the Bay Area. Facebook says the money will go toward building 20,000 new housing units “to help essential workers such as teachers, nurses and first responders live closer to the communities that rely on them,” writes chief financial officer David Wehner in a blog post announcing the pledge.
Facebook’s pledge mirrors that of one Google made back in June, in which the fellow tech giant also pledged $1 billion to help fix the California housing crisis it helped…