![]() A 2016 study by Redfin found that only 20% of homes for sale across major U.S. Tenants at the school district complex can stay up to five years, hopefully using the time to save up for a down payment on a house.īut those too are becoming more difficult to buy. “It’s terrible the schools have to come up with schemes to build housing to pay teachers,” said Gladwyn d’Souza, a Sierra Club member who supports workforce housing but says there should be more homes for everyone. So far, the district is opposed to those changes, inflaming critics. They want more units at below-market rents and taller buildings to preserve more open space, including a decades-old garden scheduled for razing. But the Sierra Club’s local chapter and others have expressed objections. The district also has a more ambitious plan to lease school property for a 1,200-unit development that would mix retail with market-rate housing and generate revenue to beef up teacher salaries. So in 2017-2018, officials came up with a plan to address recruitment and retention, including a $75 million housing complex for teachers and staff financed in part by a $30 million bond measure approved by voters in 2018. Roughly a quarter of the 500 employees at Jefferson Union were resigning or retiring every year and the district, where teacher salaries for the 2022-23 year start at $60,000, could not compete with wealthier schools that pay new teachers $76,000 or more. “There are skeptics of whether schools should be doing this with their land.”Īerial drone footage of the new apartment complex for Jefferson Union High School District employees. “One of the biggest barriers is the need for people to think outside the box,” he said. Jeff Vincent, co-founder and director of the Center for Cities & Schools at the University of California, Berkeley, said such housing complexes are rare, but he expects more school districts to explore the concept given the benefits of teachers living in the communities where they work, so they can get to know students and families better.īut such projects face obstacles, including pushback from residents. “So this became an idea to spark economic development and to create housing.” Teachers were traveling “hours and hours to get to school and back,” said Randi Weingarten, AFT union president. In West Virginia, the American Federation of Teachers recently helped open a building with apartments for teachers and retail shops that officials hope will revitalize the rural town of Welch. “It’s like a great gift coming from the district,” said math teacher Eleonor Obedoza of her family’s new three-bedroom apartment. “For us to be at the front end of this new wave of teacher and staff housing is actually pretty exciting.” ![]() As we’ve gone through the process, we’ve learned of so many other districts interested in doing what we’ve done,” said Andrew Lie, a school board trustee. ![]() “This is absolutely a solution for other districts. But with a national teacher shortage and rapidly rising rents, the working-class district could serve as a harbinger as schools across the U.S. The Jefferson Union High School District in San Mateo County’s Daly City is among just a handful of places in the country with educator housing. I think it shows educators that they value them.” “More districts really need to consider this model. “I have a sense of community, which I think is more valuable than anything else,” the 41-year-old San Francisco native said. But her employer, a 4,000-student school district south of San Francisco, was the rare success story in the struggle to provide affordable housing and in May, it opened 122 apartments for teachers and staff. It was once an impossible dream in an exorbitantly priced region hostile to new housing. (AP) - San Francisco Bay Area high school teacher Lisa Raskin moved out of a cramped apartment she was sharing with a roommate and into her own place this month, paying a deeply discounted $1,500 a month for a one-bedroom with expansive views within walking distance to work.
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