Hope for the holidays: partnering to address the housing crisis

Santa Clara County, California is home to Cisco’s headquarters. It’s also the third-highest county in the nation for chronic homelessness. Roughly 7,500 men, women and children lack reliable housing. In March of 2018, Cisco committed to doing something about it. Back then, Chuck Robbins announced that Cisco would make a five-year, $50 million commitment to support the work of Destination: Home, a public-private partnership in San Jose with a mission to end homelessness in Santa Clara County.

Chuck called on other business leaders in our community to come together in what he called a spirit of innovation and “collective creativity” to find new ways to “create a thriving community … for those who need our help the most.”

Cisco and Pure Storage also teamed up with LinkedIn and others in the tech industry and philanthropy circles to make big investments in the TECH Fund, an initiative of the Housing Trust Silicon Valley. The TECH Fund helps fund affordable housing projects in the Bay Area. To date, more than 1,500 homes have been built through the TECH Fund.

These are just some of the ways we’re working with our partners to address homelessness and the affordable housing crisis in our own backyard. As we celebrate our personal holiday traditions, it’s important to think about big vision projects like these that serve others. After all, there’s no limit to what we can do when we and our global partners share a common desire to do what’s right in our communities.

Happy holidays to all.