For 50 years, MidPen Housing has developed over 140 housing communities with over 9,000 homes for low-income families, seniors, and people with special needs. Serving over 11 counties in Northern California, MidPen first came together as a coalition of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, UC Berkeley and Stanford faculty, and community leaders committed to addressing the needs of vulnerable residents through affordable housing. The heart of MidPen’s labor of love centers on creating safe, affordable housing of high quality to people in need that foster and enable stability, opportunity, and dignity in diverse communities.
Early on, MidPen Housing set out to help shepherd a new era in affordable housing through its focus on elegant design and people-first management that located homes near quality schools and good jobs. Suffice to say, MidPen Housing is the kind of housing in which a family, a neighborhood, and a city can take pride.
The execution of that mission is evident when laying eyes on Fetters Apartments and Celestina Gardens, both of which represent MidPen’s first Sonoma County housing community located in the Agua Caliente/Fetters Hot Springs region of Sonoma Valley. The homes came to life as part of a master-planned and intergenerational vision where residents of all ages can live, work, attend school, shop, have easy access to transportation and enjoy many community amenities including Vailetti Plaza. Fetters Apartments, which first opened in late 2017, provides affordable apartment homes for 60 families. Next door, Celestina Gardens provides 40 affordable rental apartments for seniors and welcomed residents earlier this year. To learn more about Celestina Gardens, MidPen curated a beautiful eBook that can be accessed here: https://bit.ly/cgardens-midpen
As part of its mission, MidPen Housing is a strong believer that affordable housing must also be coupled with quality on-site services for residents. Every year, MidPen invests $10MM in services to over 18,000 residents by leveraging the stability of affordable housing and integrating family, senior, and supportive housing services that include after-school programs for youth and connecting seniors with health and wellness services, among many other services. During this pandemic, MidPen has continued to support residents by adapting services to maintain resident safety, increasing food distribution, establishing a resident resiliency fund, pivoting to virtual programming and equipping 410 households with Chromebooks to bridge the digital divide.
Headquartered in Foster City, MidPen opened an office in Santa Rosa in 2015 to increase its commitment to Sonoma County and the North Bay. As our county continues to rebuild from the wildfires, MidPen has stepped up and leaned in to help address the desperate housing needs of our community. MidPen has several housing communities in the pipeline that will offer local residents an opportunity to access stability and economic opportunity through affordable housing. In Santa Rosa, MidPen Housing is leading the affordable housing development at Roseland Village that will provide 75 affordable rental homes along Sebastopol Road that will include a 1-acre plaza, 100 market-rate homes, a civic building, and a Mercado building. MidPen has three additional housing communities in the pipeline that are located in Sonoma Springs, Santa Rosa, and Petaluma totaling 212 homes for local families.
“MidPen and its team of five development professionals in our Santa Rosa office are committed to helping Sonoma County produce solutions to its affordable housing crisis,” said Matt Franklin, President & CEO of MidPen Housing. “We are enthusiastic to have an affordable housing champion in Generation Housing, and look forward to working together to create and support a healthy, welcoming, and livable region for all.”
Having spent over nine years working in Sonoma County, MidPen is steadfast in its commitment to provide stable and affordable housing to those who need it most. Generation Housing is proud to have MidPen as a Founding Member and a partner in helping advance an inclusive and vibrant Sonoma County.