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Alameda County has allocated $53 million of funds from a 2020 sales tax to 10 housing projects, county officials announced Wednesday in Oakland.
The awards were approved by the county Board of Supervisors at its meeting Tuesday.
Across five projects in Oakland, two in Berkeley, and one each in Alameda, Livermore, and Newark, the funding will help deliver more than 900 permanently affordable homes, including 346 units for unhoused people, county officials said at a press conference at the Alameda County Administration Building.
City officials confirmed that the funds will go to the Downtown Livermore Apartments project, which is set to bring 130 affordable units for low-income families in the heart of the city’s downtown.
In November 2020, Alameda County voters narrowly passed Measure W, which instituted a 0.5% sales tax for 10 years. The tax revenue was earmarked for homelessness-related services.
But the Alameda County Taxpayers Association sued the county over the legality of the tax, and a lengthy court battle followed, suspending the accrued funds in limbo.
In April 2025, a judge ruled that the funds accrued over the previous five years would be made available to Alameda County as a general fund, meaning it must be distributed by the Board of Supervisors rather than be earmarked for a specific purpose.
In July, the board voted to allocate 80% of the funds for the county’s homelessness response plan called the “Home Together” plan, and 20% for other essential services like meal delivery.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Supervisors Elisa Marquez and Nikki Fortunato Bas said that Measure W is projected to raise $1.8 billion over 10 years, of which $1.4 billion will be dedicated towards homelessness services.
“In just the last six months, we (the Board of Supervisors) have invested more than $146 million to boost prevention (of homelessness), expand shelters across the county, and create permanent, supportive housing,” said Fortunato Bas. “The awards that we approved yesterday … are a great example of how we’re making the most of each measure W dollar.”
Michelle Starratt, the housing director at the county’s Housing and Community Development department, said Measure W funds are even more critical at a time when federal and state funds for housing are scarce.
“Each of these projects is now able to go after state and federal funding,” Starratt said. “Without the additional Measure W funding, they wouldn’t have qualified. So now we can go leverage those dollars, bring them back into our county.”
She said that construction should begin on all 10 projects within the next 12 months.
Mayors Barbara Lee of Oakland, Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft of Alameda, John Marchand of Livermore, and Michael Hannon of Newark were also in attendance.
Lee pointed out that while Oakland constitutes 22% of the county’s population, the city is home to 54% of its unhoused population, and 74% of its unhoused Black population.
“We can’t sweep this under the rug: Oakland is the epicenter of this crisis, and not by coincidence,” she said. “It’s a product of decades of redlining, disinvestment, and displacement. We have to address the underlying structural issues around homelessness.”
Story by Tanay Gokhale, Bay City News
Editor’s note: Embarcadero Media East Bay Division Editor Cierra Bailey contributed to this report.
