Amidst the crowd celebrating the opening of the new school, Principal Jackie Vo-Felbinger and Milpitas Unified School District Superintendent Cheryl Jordan cut the ribbon, formally opening Mabel Mattos Elementary in Milpitas on Aug. 7. (Harvey Barkin photo)
As communities across the Bay Area push to create affordable teacher housing, the Milpitas Unified School District is trying out a different approach: asking parents to take in teachers priced out by soaring Silicon Valley rents.
Last school year, the district said it lost at least seven teachers who struggled to afford the area. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Milpitas is now nearly $3,000 a month, a 15% spike since last September, according to rental listing site Zumper. That works out to roughly half the annual salary for early-career teachers in the district, who earned around $68,000 last year.
Since sending out its request online last week, the district said it has received 55 responses from families looking to rent out a room in their home.
“This is evidence that our entire MUSD Team, which includes our teachers and classified support staff, is valued by our Milpitas community members, parents and caregivers,” said Superintendent Cheryl Jordan in a statement.
The new program comes as Bay Area school districts have struggled in recent years to attract and retain qualified educators in the face of skyrocketing housing costs and a nationwide teacher shortage.
In response, districts and local governments are increasingly seeking to create affordable housing for teachers. That includes a planned apartment complex with up to 110 units in Palo Alto, a project with 144 units for teachers now underway in Mountain View, and a recently opened 122-unit development in Daly City on land owned by the Jefferson Union High School District.
In 2002, the Santa Clara Unified School District opened the 70-unit Casa de Maestro, an early example of teacher housing on school property in the Bay Area. A church in San Jose turned an old convent into homes for local teachers last year.
School officials in Berkeley last year endorsed a proposal to create about 110 apartments for teachers and staff. Milpitas Unified has also discussed building teacher housing, as well as other efforts to subsidize homes for educators and staff.
“(Developing teacher housing) was a crazy idea a handful of years ago, but it’s definitely gaining traction everyday,” said Jeff Vincent, director of the Center for Cities and Schools at UC Berkeley. “When you look at school districts, one thing they tend to have is land.”
A recent study by Vincent and other researchers found 900 district-owned sites that are primed for development across Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Districts in each county have shown interest in building homes for teachers, according to researchers.
But finding the money for new projects is a constant challenge, especially as development costs spike thanks to inflation and rising interest rates — and as underfunded districts are stretched thin with school enrollment on the decline in the wake of the pandemic. On top of that, residents sometimes push back on teacher housing in their neighborhood, as was the case when San Jose school officials proposed converting the current Leland High School and Bret Harte Middle School sites.
Vincent pointed to the California Teacher Housing Act of 2016, which allows school districts to apply for federal housing subsidies, as a key funding solution. Other traditional school funding measures such as government bonds and parcel taxes are also options, he said.
In Oakland, meanwhile, city and school officials have for the past two years worked to find discounted apartments for teachers and sought donations to pay a portion of their rent. The program currently supports up to 56 teachers of color in the city.
Kyra Mungia, Deputy Director of Education for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, said the city plans to announce an expansion of its teacher housing efforts next month.
She said Oakland has no plans to follow Milpitas Unified’s example and request that parents and community members house educators.
“They want to be treated like the adult amazing professionals they are,” Mungia said. “Renting a room in someone’s house doesn’t feel like maintaining someone’s dignity, like our teachers and educators deserve.”
Another solution? Pay teachers enough so they can afford to live where they work.
Mungia acknowledged that’s a tough ask given funding constraints and negotiations that must be hammered out by local school boards, teachers’ unions and state officials.
“While we are advocating for increased wages at the local and state level,” she said, “it’s important that we also take a path right now to address affordability in housing.”
Originally published at Ethan Varian