Affordable Housing Program (AHP) Fact Sheet
Millions of extremely low-, low-, and moderate-income families and individuals struggle every day to afford a safe, decent, healthy place to call home. Working with our member financial institutions to expand access to affordable housing and promote sustainable homeownership are central to FHLBank San Francisco’s mission.
Each year, we contribute 10% of our net income from the preceding year to our Affordable Housing Program. The majority of these funds are awarded through a competitive application process and used by members to help finance the development, acquisition, or rehabilitation of rental and owner-occupied multifamily and single-family housing for families and individuals earning up to 80% of the area median income. A portion of the Bank's AHP funds are set aside for our matching grant homeownership programs for very low-, low-, and moderate-income first-time homebuyers, expanding access to homeownership in the neighborhoods our members serve.
From the start of our AHP in 1990, we’ve awarded over $1.35 billion in grants to aid the purchase, development, or rehabilitation of over 154,300 affordable homes in the regions our members serve. We celebrated crossing the $1 billion mark in this video.
Competitive Application AHP
We allocate at least 65% of our annual AHP contribution to our annual AHP funding competition. Our members and affordable housing partners work together to submit applications for projects, from rehabilitation to new construction, that make more rental and homeownership opportunities available for community members. Our members often provide direct financing to these projects, leveraging funds from other public and private sources to make the project pencil out.
First-Time Homebuyer Program
Our AHP contribution also funds our WISH (Workforce Initiative Subsidy for Homeownership) matching grant homeownership program, which helps lower-income first-time homebuyers overcome the most challenging barriers to homeownership — down payments and closing costs. WISH grants are delivered through our members to aspiring homebuyers and targeted to individuals and families earning up to 80% of the area’s median income. This program matches $4 for every $1 a homebuyer contributes toward the purchase of a home, up to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's annual maximum subsidy. Our program requires homebuyers to complete a homebuyer counseling program.