In 2022, MacKenzie Scott donated two Beverly Hills homes valued at $55 million; their sale supported affordable housing in Los Angeles | World News

Beverly Hills is known for some of the most expensive residential property in Los Angeles, where large homes can change hands for tens of millions of dollars. In 2022, two such properties became part of a very different kind of transaction. MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated the pair of Beverly Hills residences to the California Community Foundation (CCF), turning valuable private property into a source of funding for affordable housing.As reported by CCF, the two homes were valued together at about $55 million. Rather than remaining as personal assets, they were intended to be sold, with most of the proceeds directed towards housing work across Los Angeles County. It was an unusually direct link between luxury real estate and a problem affecting people far beyond the streets where those houses stood.

MacKenzie Scott donated her $55 million Beverly Hills homes to fund affordable housing

As reported by The New York Post, MacKenzie Scott and Jeff Bezos had acquired the first property in 2007, paying about $24.4 million for a Spanish-style villa. It was a substantial estate, with seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms.The second house came later. In 2017, the couple paid $12.9 million for another residence on the same street. The 4,500-square-foot property was considerably smaller than the first, but it was still part of one of the most expensive residential markets in the country.When Scott donated the two residences to the California Community Foundation, the foundation valued them at roughly $55 million. The plan was to sell the properties rather than preserve them as charitable housing. Around 90% of the eventual sale proceeds were earmarked for the foundation’s affordable housing grantmaking. The remaining portion was to support its work helping immigrants settle and build opportunities in Los Angeles County.The foundation had already spent years supporting housing initiatives in the region. Since 2000, it has awarded more than $30 million towards efforts intended to help Angelenos find safe and stable homes, alongside wider economic support.

MacKenzie Scott’s $55 million gift aimed to expand affordable housing in Los Angeles

The donation also showed how quickly the purpose of a piece of property can change when ownership changes hands. The first house had originally been purchased as a private residence for a wealthy family. Years later, its value was being used to support people facing a very different housing reality elsewhere in Los Angeles.The foundation said the gift would permanently strengthen its affordable housing grantmaking. At the time, Los Angeles was already dealing with a severe shortage of reasonably priced housing, and the organisation had been involved in efforts to increase the supply of new homes.CCF had also helped lead support for Proposition HHH, a Los Angeles initiative aimed at financing 10,000 new housing units. By the time of Scott’s donation, 10,510 units across 178 projects had been funded, putting the city ahead of that original target.

The earlier donation gave the foundation room to direct funds

According to CCF, the Beverly Hills donation was not Scott’s first contribution to the California Community Foundation. In 2021, she had given the organisation $20 million to establish the LA Arts Endowment Fund.That earlier donation was aimed at supporting small and mid-sized arts organisations in Los Angeles, particularly groups that play a role in the city’s creative economy. The later property donation shifted the focus towards housing while retaining the same basic approach: providing the foundation with substantial resources that it could direct through its own grantmaking.For the foundation, having funds that could be allocated across organisations was useful. It did not have to tie the entire value of the gift to a single development or charity.

From private estates to permanent charitable funding

The story of the two homes is less about the houses themselves than what happened to their value. Millions of dollars that had once been tied up in private residential property were redirected towards organisations working on housing and integration in Los Angeles.For the California Community Foundation, that created an opportunity to keep supporting housing work long after the original donation had been made. For Scott, it was another substantial contribution following the rapid expansion of her philanthropy after the end of her marriage to Bezos.