Apple will commit $2.5 billion to fund new homes, aid home buyers and prevent homelessness in California, becoming the latest Bay Area company pledging to combat the housing crisis.

Apple’s move, by far the largest such commitment by a tech company to date, follows similar announcements by Google and Facebook. Both companies recently released separate $1 billion plans to build affordable housing and otherwise ease the strained housing market in the region they call home.

Silicon Valley companies are under increasing pressure from employees and local and state politicians to offset the consequences of the sector’s rapid hiring, which gained steam during the past decade’s economic boom. The thriving job market is seen as contributing to the Bay Area’s skyrocketing housing prices and lengthening commutes, though experts say restrictive zoning and the failure of local governments to meet state housing goals also play a part.

“Affordable housing means stability and dignity, opportunity and pride,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement before the company’s formal announcement Monday. “When these things fall out of reach for too many, we know the course we are on is unsustainable, and Apple is committed to being part of the solution.”

The median home price in Santa Clara and San Francisco counties is well over $1 million. And many people don’t live in the cities where they work. Last year, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf criticized Apple and its headquarters hometown, the South Bay city of Cupertino, for contributing to the strain on her city’s housing market while not doing their part.

Silicon Valley has seen the largest increase in commute times in the country in the past decade. Since 2010, travel times to work increased a whopping 21%, averaging 73 minutes a day, according to a report by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

The Monday announcement is Apple’s first large-scale action toward fighting the regional housing crisis. As part of the development of its new, 12,000-employee Apple Park headquarters, it agreed to give $6 million toward affordable housing in Cupertino as part of a community-benefits agreement with the city. Even the new pledge pales when compared to Apple’s $260 billion in annual revenue.

Apple has set aside $1 billion to get shovel-ready affordable housing projects off the ground through a line of credit. Another $1 billion is a mortgage assistance fund for first-time home buyers overseen by the state.

It also plans to make available $300 million worth of Apple-owned land in San Jose for housing, working with private developers to build 3,500 units of housing there.

Employers’ plans to combat crisis Apple: Committed $2.5 billion toward housing affordability and homelessness prevention. Kaiser Permanente: Committed $200 million to grow affordable housing and fight homelessness in Bay Area cities and other places where it operates. Partnership for the Bay’s Future: A group including Facebook and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is raising $540 million for affordable housing, with $150 million newly committed by Facebook. Google: Putting $1 billion to work on addressing the region’s housing shortage, including rezoning land it owns. So far, it’s invested $50 million to Housing Trust Silicon Valley’s Tech Fund to help finance 181 affordable homes in two San Jose projects. Facebook: Investing $1 billion over the next decade to help fund 20,000 new homes in California. Wells Fargo: Pledged $1 billion in donations through 2025. Marc and Lynne Benioff: The Salesforce co-CEO and his wife donated tens of millions of dollars to fund research on homelessness and subsidize rents for the newly housed. Source: Chronicle research

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The remaining $200 million is going to grants to Bay Area housing nonprofits: Housing Trust Silicon Valley, a San Jose lending nonprofit, gets $150 million, with the rest going to Destination: Home, a San Jose homelessness-prevention organization.

“Our community has had one of the highest rates of income inequality in the nation,” said Jennifer Loving, chief executive of Destination: Home. “We have to respond to homelessness the way we respond to other human crisis. Shelters are not it; the solution is deeply affordable housing.”

Cupertino, Apple’s hometown, has been resistant to building new housing. A project to redevelop the abandoned Vallco mall, a stone’s throw from Apple Park, is still in limbo. The new initiative will not involve the Vallco project, which Apple has been silent about.

It’s likely to take two years to fully use the money being committed, depending on the availability of projects, Apple said.

Facebook said last month that it would invest $1 billion over the next decade to help fund 20,000 new homes in California, and Google plans to help finance 5,000 affordable housing units close to its offices and near transportation hubs, over a similar time frame. So far, Google has provided $50 million in funding to build two San Jose projects that will produce a combined 181 affordable homes.

Non-tech companies are also pledging funding toward housing. Oakland health care giant Kaiser Permanente and the San Francisco bank Wells Fargo have also committed millions for housing as recruiting new workers to the region becomes increasingly difficult.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Google’s contribution toward housing in San Jose.

Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika