San Francisco’s largest employer is co-launching an initiative to research and end the city’s homelessness epidemic.
Salesforce CRM, -0.20% CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne have donated $30 million to launch the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, which aims to research the causes of homelessness and find solutions to prevent and end the crisis, UC San Francisco revealed Wednesday. The Benioffs’ gift is reportedly the largest-ever private donation to fund homelessness research.
An estimated 7,500 people are homeless in San Francisco, and more than 4,000 of them sleep on the streets every night. “Rising housing costs and income inequality are leading to more people, including families and older adults, entering homelessness for the first time,” the UCSF said in a statement.
Some residents have accused tech companies like Salesforce for pricing them out, as the median price of a two-bedroom home is now $1.3 million, and a family of four earning $117,400 a year is considered low-income, the Los Angeles Times noted.
Benioff, the billionaire co-founder of the cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform, was born and raised in San Francisco. And he has been active in supporting efforts to end homelessness.
He and his wife previously pledged $6.1 million to renovate the Bristol Hotel to create 58 housing units in San Francisco, as well as $11.5 million to the Hamilton Families’ Heading Home Campaign. They donated another $2 million to the “yes on C” campaign last year to promote Proposition C in San Francisco, which would tax large companies in the city and earmark that anticipated $300 million in tax revenues to address homelessness. (The measure was passed and awaits validation in court.)
“The world needs a North Star for truth on homelessness,” Benioff said in a statement. “The UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative will be that North Star, providing the latest research, data and evidence-based solutions to ensure we’re investing in programs that will help solve the homelessness crisis.”
