PHOENIX — Phoenix is putting $15 million into affordable housing through its Housing Trust Fund, a step one Valley nonprofit calls a great start with room to grow, ABC15 reported.
The City Council unanimously approved a spending plan for the money, according to a city news release from Oct. 27 and Mayor Kate Gallego.
The council created the Housing Trust Fund in 2025 to support the broader Housing Phoenix Plan. The city estimates Phoenix is short 59,000 affordable and available rental units for households with the greatest needs.
“We set an ambitious goal to create or preserve 50,000 units by 2030, but we achieved that goal several years early,” Gallego said. “We’re now at 71,000, and we’re not stopping.”
Gallego said the trust fund lets the city step up amid limited federal housing money, which she said is distributed by formulas set decades ago when Phoenix was much smaller. “We need to see funding for some of those great programs so that we have more opportunities to take your tax dollars even further,” she said.
Chicanos Por La Causa, a nonprofit that builds and manages affordable housing and offers homebuyer counseling, manages close to 3,000 housing units across four states, said Patricia Garcia Duarte, a senior vice president for homeownership and real estate development.
“The growth is outpacing the number of housing units that are needed to meet the demand,” Garcia Duarte said, noting that Arizona’s population is still growing, though more slowly last year.
Garcia Duarte said she does not yet know when or how the money will be distributed. The mayor’s office said staff is still working on the timeline.
Separately, the City Council on Nov. 4 approved an amended development agreement for the proposed Resource Innovation Campus, a project expected to cost more than $1 billion on about 30 city-owned acres near 27th Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road, ABC15 reported.
Sources: ABC15, ABC15. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: User:Anonitect / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
