Destination: Home has announced a five-year, $50 million commitment from networking-hardware company Cisco in support of its efforts to end homelessness in Santa Clara County.

The funds will be used by the public-private partnership to maximize the impact of local strategies aimed at ending homelessness in the region, leverage existing public resources to build additional housing, upgrade technology across the homeless services sector, and invest in promising and evidence-based practices designed to help individuals and families in need of support and stability. Cisco has made the first $20 million of its commitment through the Cisco Fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

There are approximately seventy-four hundred people without a home and two thousand people considered chronically homeless in Santa Clara County, which has the third highest rate of chronic homelessness in the United States.

"We have said for a long time that it is up to all of us to end homelessness in our community," said Destination: Home CEO Jennifer Loving. "Cisco has fully embraced that concept and is stepping up in a big way to provide the type of critical private sector leadership and substantial funding that is necessary to address this crisis head on. We couldn't be more thrilled or grateful to have Chuck Robbins and the Cisco team at the table."