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.
It was once an impossible dream in an exorbitantly priced region hostile to new housing. 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. In May, it opened 122 apartments for teachers and staff.
“I have a sense of community, which I think is more valuable than anything else,” Raskin, 41, said. “More districts really need to consider this model. I think it shows educators that they value them.”
The Jefferson Union High School District in San Mateo County’s Daly City, Calif., is among several places in the country with educator housing. 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. seek to attract and retain educators.
“This is absolutely a solution for other districts. 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. “For us to be at the front end of this new wave of teacher and staff housing is actually pretty exciting.”
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.
Teachers were traveling “hours and hours to get to school and back,” said Randi Weingarten, AFT union president. “So this became an idea to spark economic development and to create housing.”
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.
But such projects face obstacles, including pushback from residents. Vincent urges districts to be cautious.
“One of the biggest barriers is the need for people to think outside the box,” he said. “There are skeptics of whether schools should be doing this with their land.”
Roughly a quarter of the 500 employees at Jefferson Union were resigning or retiring every year. 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.
So in 2017-2018, officials came up with a plan for recruitment and retention, including a $75 million housing complex for teachers and staff financed in part by a $30 million bond issue approved by voters.
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. But the Sierra Club’s local chapter and others have expressed objections. They want more units at below-market rents and taller buildings to preserve more open space, including a decades-old garden scheduled for razing.
So far, the district is opposed to those changes, inflaming critics.
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.
But those too are becoming more difficult to buy. A 2016 study by Redfin found that only 20% of homes for sale across major U.S. metro areas were affordable on an average teacher’s salary of $62,800, down from 34% in 2012.
Boston high school English teacher Shirley Jones-Luke, who bought her house nearly two decades ago, said there’s no way she’d be able to afford one today in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Dorchester where she’s taught for years.
“It’s important to students to know that their teachers live in the same communities as them, shop at the same stores,” said Jones-Luke, who is Black.
California lawmakers in 2016 made it easier for districts to build workforce housing on school property, but some efforts have stalled over financing and residential pushback. Five workforce housing complexes currently exist in Los Angeles, Santa Clara and San Mateo county school districts.
Jefferson Union was the rare success story, building the new complex on a former parking lot of an old high school currently used for district offices.
The apartments range in monthly rent from $1,356 for a one-bedroom to $2,511 for a three-bedroom, which officials say is 58% of market rate.
About 80 employees are to move in by fall and another 30 are applying, including about a dozen new hires, said Tina Van Raaphorst, associate superintendent of business services. The average annual salary of residents is $62,300, and includes janitors, cafeteria workers and bus drivers.
During the pandemic, Raskin moved out of her mother’s house to share an apartment with a friend. But living quarters were tight. The chance to move into a place of her own was like hitting the jackpot, said Raskin, who teaches health and social science.
“This is mine,” she said.