So, if you want in, you only have a lit­tle more than two weeks to act.

The housing crisis

Main­Street hopes to expand the num­ber of com­pa­nies that allow remote work, which could ful­fill its goal of cre­at­ing jobs in sub­ur­ban and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties while help­ing to address the hous­ing cri­sis in the Bay Area.

It’s no secret that the hous­ing cri­sis in San Fran­cis­co’s Bay Area is a major prob­lem, as afford­able hous­ing has dwin­dled, thanks to the mass of tech com­pa­nies and well-paid work­ers push­ing out low-income and mid­dle-class work­ers.

Apple recent­ly announced a $2.5 bil­lion finan­cial pack­age to help address the hous­ing cri­sis in Cal­i­for­nia.

Google has com­mit­ted $1 bil­lion to rede­vel­op com­pa­ny owned land for afford­able hous­ing while also devel­op­ing a fund to incen­tivize devel­op­ers to build afford­able hous­ing in the region.

And Face­book CEO Mark Zucker­burg has helped raise $500 mil­lion to sup­port an invest­ment fund he helped launch called Part­ner­ship for the Bay’s Future, which aims to help fight the hous­ing cri­sis.

“The high cost of liv­ing is an enor­mous prob­lem in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area,” Lud­low said. “As a result, fam­i­lies who have lived in the area for decades are now being priced out of their homes. This isn’t a sus­tain­able way to grow and main­tain a com­mu­ni­ty, and it’s a huge prob­lem.”

The future of work?

Com­pa­nies work with Main­Street to recruit and train employ­ees who are inter­est­ed in mov­ing out of the Bay Area and work­ing remote­ly. These employ­ees will be trained by Main­Street on tools such as remote video con­fer­enc­ing for eas­i­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and will work out of satel­lite offices that Lud­low calls “Main­Street com­mu­ni­ties.”

These offices will allow work­ers to work along­side oth­er remote work­ers, some of which could be from dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies, as it could reduce the iso­la­tion many remote work­ers may feel.

While these remote work­ers will be employed by that com­pa­ny, Main­Street will han­dle the logis­tics and train­ing to get them set­up to work remote­ly.

Lud­low believes that remote work­ers will play a piv­otal role in “the future of work,” and said that the com­pa­ny is build­ing “a sophis­ti­cat­ed set of tech­no­log­i­cal tools and ser­vices that will help make effec­tive remote work a real­i­ty for sub­ur­ban and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.”

“The ben­e­fits of effec­tive remote work are clear — employ­ees are hap­pi­er, and if they are hap­pierl they are far more like­ly to stay with your com­pa­ny,” said Lud­low. “In addi­tion, in the Bay Area and New York you have to pay peo­ple astro­nom­i­cal­ly high salaries. In oth­er regions, com­pa­nies can pay their employ­ees less, yet because of the reduced cost of liv­ing, these employ­ees have a much high­er qual­i­ty of life than their Bay Area coun­ter­parts.”

And if that isn’t enough to entice poten­tial appli­cants, Main­Street is guar­an­tee­ing a stipend of up to $5,000 a month for three months and health care ben­e­fits for their fam­i­ly if they lose their job.

The com­pa­ny’s mis­sion seems to be res­onat­ing with a num­ber of cities, as Lud­low said that they are work­ing with a num­ber of state eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment com­mis­sions and may­or’s offices. Bring­ing these high­ly skilled employ­ees that may oth­er­wise be employed at Google or Apple could offer a boost to the local econ­o­my.

“There has been a lot of inter­est from cities and states in our com­pa­ny,” said Lud­low. “It’s great when incen­tives can be aligned to the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors for the ben­e­fit of ordi­nary peo­ple.”