The Monterey Bay Housing Trust reaches $1.1 million mark.

The burgeoning Monterey Bay Housing Trust hasn’t issued any loans or even collected all of the $2 million in pledged equity it plans to leverage with help of the Housing Trust Silicon Valley. But the fund for affordable housing got a big boost when the Salinas City Council voted Jan. 24 to allocate $500,000 to the trust over the next three years.

The half-million dollars brings funding for the housing trust to $1.1 million, with Gonzales City Council deciding on Jan. 17 to give $100,000 and private investors giving another $500,000.

“We felt that investment would be wise and that Salinas had to take a lead,” says Salinas City Councilmember Kimbley Craig. “My hope is that Peninsula cities follow suit.”

The city of Salinas needs to build 888 units for low – and very low-income residents by 2023 to keep up with growing need, according to a 2014 report by the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments. Funding from the housing trust won’t come close to covering needed affordable housing costs but will help with seed money to get projects off the ground, says Matt Huerta, housing program manager for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, the trust’s parent organization.

Efforts are underway to secure private and public partners to come up with the remaining $900,000 in funds needed for the initiative, including the city of Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County.

Nonprofit housing developers, like Eden, CHISPA and MidPen, and two for-profit outfits have already identified eight low-income projects they hope to build in the region, Huerta adds.