About the institute

SV@Home’s Fellowship program is the right fit if you want your staff to:

• Gain technical, critical thinking, and communication skills necessary for professional entry, development, and advancement in the affordable housing field.
• Learn practical concepts of housing justice and affordable housing history, policy, analysis, and advocacy.
• Connect with SV@Home’s vast network of community partners in the affordable housing ecosystem.
• Embark on a project within your organization that contributes to systems-changing solutions in the affordable housing field.
• Design, plan, and execute event organizing and presenting the findings of your affordable housing-related project to the public.
• Learn healing and resiliency practices to ensure longevity in your professional housing career.

Starting in September 2026, we plan to welcome the second Brick by Brick Fellowship cohort of 8-10 fellows, who will commit to eight monthly, all-day sessions every second Friday of the month, participate in a mentorship program,  organize an Affordable Housing Month event in May, and celebrate their graduation ceremony in June 2027.

Participants will be made up of employees in organizations with 0-3 years of experience in a professional setting or in the housing field. As long as leadership of the organization is aware of fellowship responsibilities and can provide support to the prospective fellow, exceptions to employed participants include:

• Members of lived experience boards
• Prominent volunteers of community-based organizations 

Participants must be officially nominated by their employer (i.e. organizational leadership).  Friends, co-workers, and external colleagues of the nominee can nominate, but must provide the nominee’s employer information. Employees are also encouraged to ask employers to nominate them. Employers must be members of SV@Home. Click here to renew your organization’s membership or become an SV@Home member today so your staff can participate in this exciting program!

Other than the participating organization paying the annual due for SV@Home membership, there are no other costs! This is a benefit of being an SV@Home organizational member! Click here to renew your membership or become an SV@Home member today!

Our partners are instrumental in making program delivery possible and increasing the scale of training our future leaders in the Silicon Valley. It takes roughly $10,000 to invest in each fellow, but thanks to our partners, participating organizations in the Fellowship simply need to become an SV@Home member at accessible rates.

Click here if you believe in our leadership development revolution and would like to support it.

• Participating organizations can include nonprofits who are community-based organizations, affordable housing developers, land trusts, community development financial institutions, or foundations. Local government employees are also welcome, but please be aware that this program currently prioritizes the above stated organizations.
• Nominees must be employed in the participating organization or either a well-supported member of a lived experience board or prominent volunteer of a community-based organization.
• Nominations must ultimately come from a participating organization’s leadership. Friends, co-workers, and external colleagues of the employee can nominate, but must provide the nominee’s employer information. Employees are also encouraged to ask employers to nominate them.
• Participating organizations must be up-to-date, dues paying SV@Home Members after an applicant has been accepted into the program. Click here to renew your membership or become an SV@Home member now!
• If accepted, the nominee’s employer/supervisor supports the employee’s full participation in the fellowship.
• Nominees need to be early-career professionals with 0-3 years of experience working in the housing field at their current job in any capacity.
• Nominees should come from either a low-income background and/or from communities of color.
• Nominees need to have experienced some form of housing insecurity in their lives.
• Nominees must have or will have housing-related work as part of their job duties.

Not Required

• Affordable housing nor policy expertise.

Qualities We Look For

• Devotion to housing justice: we aim to train leaders who share our vision of creating systemic changes for a diverse and equitable Silicon Valley where everyone has a safe, stable, affordable home.
• Dedication to community: community has many layers and meanings, but generally one that is rooted in compassion and commitment to support and empower people.
• Abundant mindset: readiness to take housing career to the next level by having an open mind and co-creating a culture of kindness, that celebrates people, and embraces opportunities.
• Wonder and intellectual curiosity: views the world with excitement and exploration; is ready to learn, create the capacity to understand differing perspectives, and examine one’s own assumptions. 
• Cultivate, multiply, and motivate leadership: there are many ways to lead, though some common factors include the ability to take initiative, have the capacity to mobilize people, and inspire others to lead.
• Tenacity: deep passion for the work and the ability to persevere through challenges over months and years, while giving oneself grace.

• We serve early career professionals who come from low-income, lived experience, and/or communities of color.
• We offer both professional and leadership development skills that support both effectiveness in the job and career advancement.
• We provide learning opportunities in what SV@Home and our partners at Destination:Home specialize in: affordable housing and homelessness policy analysis and advocacy.
• Our commitment to training emerging leaders who prioritizes systemic changes to the housing system.
• Our geographic scope is Santa Clara County/Silicon Valley