AI for Housing Justice Open Call

Our inaugural open call seeks projects that leverage AI to address critical technical infrastructure and capacity gaps in the Bay Area housing ecosystem. We’re particularly interested in approaches that recognize housing as a social issue first and foremost, and are:

• building systems and tools that enable housing leaders to collaborate, strategize, and transform the Bay Area housing ecosystem,  
• advancing one or more of the 4Ps of housing: tenant protection, affordable housing preservation, affordable housing production, and homelessness prevention, and
• supporting impacted communities to envision and determine their housing futures.

Eligibility Guidelines:

• Geography: Funding requests must serve residents in one or more of the following nine Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Napa, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma.
• Tax-exempt status: Recipients are limited to organizations with an IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status or those which are a fiscally sponsored project of another nonprofit entity. Projects may apply as a partnership so long as the lead applicant is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. 501(c)(4) organizations and for-profit entities are not eligible in this round of funding. 
• Open-source: Projects must make intellectual property supported by grant funds available under CC BY-NC 4.0 International License

Award Guidelines

• Type of Award: Awards will be structured as project grants and will be given to organizations, not to individuals
• Number and Amount of Awards: This Fund will award a combined total of up to $800,000. We anticipate funding several projects up to $100,000 over one year and/or up to two projects of up to $400,000 over two years, depending on project stage and transformative potential. The number and size of grants to be awarded will be determined based on the number, size, and scope of the projects proposed. Applicants are encouraged to request budgets that reflect the scope and needs of their work.
• Award Duration: Awards will be between 12 and 24 months. 
• Prohibited use of Grant Funds: Nonprofit general operating support, ongoing program support, proprietary systems that don’t benefit the broader housing ecosystem, and projects without a potential impact on the Bay Area.