The ground has long since been broken at the Downtown San Jose site on North 2nd Street near St. James Park, where today City and County officials, nonprofit leaders, affordable housing advocates, and real estate executives gathered to celebrate the construction of a first-of-its-kind project many years in the making.

What makes this particular project so significant is that it will be the first-ever permanent supportive housing for the homeless in Downtown San Jose—and only the second of its kind in the City as a whole—which is currently suffering its own housing crisis much like the rest of the Bay Area. San Jose City Councilmember Raul Peralez was a featured speaker at today's construction celebration. "Affordable housing and homelessness is the biggest problem facing the Bay Area," says Peralez, "we know the solution, and it's developments like this."

Yolo Food Bank is the largest hunger-relief organization in Yolo County, serving 19,000 households each month from its current facility in Woodland, CA, and distributing more than 4 million pounds of food annually. Beginning in December, the Food Bank is undergoing a large expansion and renovation project which will increase its overall food storage capacity by 2.5 times, as well as allow the organization to provide additional services, such as food preparation and nutrition courses, which put its beneficiaries on a path to sustainable healthy eating.

Brown Construction is the general contractor managing the Yolo Food Bank expansion and renovation project. Ron Brown, President and CEO of Brown Construction, has committed to donating all profits from this project back to the Food Bank.