Housing affordability is a growing issue for school districts and their employees across the nation. Many teachers and school staff are cost-burdened and can’t afford to live in the communities where they work, often enduring longer commutes. In addition, school districts are navigating challenges when it comes to recruitment and retention.
“Housing and housing policy are intricately linked to attracting and retaining great teachers for kids,” says Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), a nonpartisan research and policy organization on a mission to ensure every child has access to an effective teacher and every teacher has the opportunity to be effective. “What we see is high housing costs are a burden for teachers. The cost of housing is pricing some teachers out of the communities where they work.”
According to NCTQ’s analysis in spring 2023, the rent for a one-bedroom home in the nation’s largest metros increased by 22% since the organization last looked at housing affordability for teachers in 2017. However, starting teacher salaries only increased by 15% during the same period, although this varies by locality.
The NCTQ found a wide range of affordability after looking at the cost of housing in 69 metro areas and comparing those costs with salaries in the largest school districts within those locales. In 15 cities, renting a one-bedroom home was unaffordable for a starting teacher. In addition, in nine of the 15 metros representing 11 school districts, the cost of rent was more than 30% of a teacher’s salary, even for those starting teachers with a master’s degree.
San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) topped the list as the least affordable district for a beginning teacher to rent a one-bedroom home, with rental costs comprising 47% of a starting teacher’s salary. Oregon’s Portland Public Schools, San Diego Unified School District, Hawaii Department of Education, and New York City Department of Education round out the top five for least affordable districts.
Peske states that her organization suggests several strategies for policymakers to address the affordability crisis, such as increasing pay and providing incentives.
“Teachers are the most important in-school factor for making a difference for children,” says Peske. “Linking compensation with your benefits and giving attention to affordability of housing can really help to increase the attractiveness and help keep teachers in those districts.”
Some school districts are taking action when it comes to both compensation and housing.
NCTQ’s analysis found that 21 of the districts analyzed in 20 metros boosted their beginning teacher salaries more than the increase in the cost of a one-bedroom rental. For example, Albuquerque Public Schools increased its teacher starting salaries by 47%, while the cost of a one-bedroom rental increased by 15%. However, even in three districts that did give cost-of- living increases that exceeded rent hikes over the previous five years, rent still represented more than 30% of a teacher’s salary.
School districts and municipalities are looking outside the box to address the issue. They are evaluating surplus or underutilized land and teaming with developers to create attainable housing for their employees as well as the greater public.
“It’s very dynamic in terms of enrollment and demographic patterns. There’s a lot of surplus land right now,” says MidPen Housing president and CEO Matthew O. Franklin. “I think the biggest challenge is on the governance side. People who sign up to be on school boards aren’t signing up to do real estate deals. I have become understanding and empathetic of how hard it is for those bodies to make these decisions.”
From the San Francisco Bay Area to Atlanta, read more about these creative public-private partnerships and the support they are providing for cost-burdened educators.
Building a Foundation
Three parties—SFUSD, the Mayor’s Office, and the United Educators of San Francisco—came together to address the need for housing for school employees in the city. They put together a request for proposals (RFP) for a development to serve this population on a donated school district site that had primarily been used for storage in a high-quality neighborhood with a lot of amenities, with MidPen Housing, a leading Bay Area affordable housing nonprofit, winning the bid.
“This development, Shirley Chisholm Village, is right in the city, which we know has a very high cost of living and can be very challenging for public school employees and teachers to meet all their needs,” says Franklin. “We think this is tremendously important housing. Just as with our other 20,000 residents that MidPen serves, that stable affordable housing really creates the solid foundation for everything in their lives.”
Shirley Chisholm Village, named after the first Black woman to be elected to Congress, comprises 135 units for residents at a diverse and wide range of incomes. Residents will begin moving in this fall.
MidPen worked closely with the union to understand salaries, pay schedules, household compensation, and household incomes that drive eligibility. Income targeting ranges from units at 30% of the area median income (AMI) up to 110% of the AMI. “And there’s a fairly significant group in that 80% to 110% of the AMI at moderate-income levels,” Franklin adds.
While the development is being constructed as one, the financing was split in two with a smaller low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) portion and a larger portion that goes beyond the upper limit of the LIHTC program. The capital stack includes federal LIHTCs, as well as substantial support from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, funded in part by the voter-approved 2015 Affordable Housing General Obligation Bond. Additional lending and equity financing was provided by Silicon Valley Bank and National Equity Fund.
“Making housing more affordable across San Francisco is at the heart of our work to provide our residents stability and uplift our workforce,” says San Francisco mayor London Breed. “Shirley Chisholm Village is a great example of our investments to allow our educators to live near where they work, but this project also opens the door for new opportunities to attract and retain top talent for the benefit of our children and youth.”
SFUSD superintendent Matt Wayne concurs with Breed.
“In alignment with our district’s vision, values, goals, and guardrails, SFUSD is committed to retaining high-quality educators who are crucial to achieving our goals for student outcomes and creating supportive learning environments for San Francisco public school students,” he says. “We support efforts to create more affordable housing for educators.”
Residents will have access to a community room where they can gather for services and programming; a fitness room; a courtyard with play equipment; and ground-floor commercial space for community-serving nonprofits.
An amenity that stands out is the co-working lounge on the top floor that came out of focus groups with teachers.
“They often have a lot of work when at home and wanted to do it outside of their apartments,” Franklin says. “The co-working lounge has a spectacular view of Golden Gate Park and the Pacific Ocean.”
Creating a Village
On the East Coast, RBH Group, a New Jersey-based developer, continues to evolve the model for one of its flagship developments—Teachers Village, a 203-unit mixed-use community in downtown Newark.
“Newark Teachers Village is a workforce housing project conceived and built over a decade ago. It was really the inspiration for doing workforce housing projects across the company with a similar mission to the original one,” says CEO Ron Beit. “Teachers are the bedrocks of our communities.”
While Newark already had a lot of affordable housing, RBH Group decided to make the development workforce-focused to be competitive and secure a public investment.
“We became fixated on creating a development centered around teachers and adding educational components for making better teachers,” he notes. “It’s been a lasting tool for the city—being able to recruit and retain the best teachers in the region.”
According to Beit, the original target was to serve 70% teachers and 30% other professionals, and, since the project was completed, it has served its mission and maintained that number.
With another teacher-focused project completed in Hartford, Connecticut, RBH Group is embarking on its third and latest iteration of Teachers Village in Atlanta. The high-rise will feature 197 workforce apartments targeted toward educators and 227 apartments for seniors. At the end of August, the Development Authority of Fulton County approved $370 million in tax-exempt bonds, which will be the primary source of funding for the project, which is expected to break ground this fall.
The workforce apartments will be capped at 120% of the AMI, with 20% of those units at or below 80% of the AMI. The independent seniors units are expected to have rents 15% below market, according to Beit.
“In this intergenerational community, you’re going to have other seniors and professionals who have a lot to teach our teachers, who are the center of our communities, and vice versa,” he says. “These retired professionals will have a second act in life to really work with the teachers in the community.”
Beit adds he’s excited for the coming years as RBH Group looks to tax-exempt bond financing to scale its mission. It has additional projects in the pipeline in Stockton, California; Chicago; and Queens, New York.
Rethinking School District Sites
As population and demographics have changed over the years and certain neighborhoods have gentrified in Texas’ capital city, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) has closed school facilities in various locations and is looking at what it can achieve with the sites.
With many district teachers and employees being cost-burdened or facing long commutes, AISD saw an opportunity to provide affordable housing. That was backed up by a study it did in February, which surveyed all school district employees: 72% of respondents strongly agreed that the lack of affordable housing is a barrier to teaching or working in Austin.
“[The school district] has a number of old sites in incredible locations proximate to jobs and transit. It didn’t make a lot of sense to continue to pay for maintenance and upkeep of these facilities. They wanted to take a strategic look at repurposing these schools that shut down and figure out what’s best for the sites,” says Nick Walsh, vice president of development at The NRP Group, a leading affordable and market-rate developer based in Cleveland. “Given the unaffordability in Austin and how hard it is to attract and retain teachers, the school district wanted to focus on things like housing, child care, and nonprofit uses with its surplus land.”
The NRP Group was selected in an RFP by the school district to create a multi-phase project on the Anita Ferrales Coy site, a nearly 20-acre property that had been home to a school that closed about a decade ago due to population shifts. The project will include two distinct developments comprising over 650 units, with half for households earning up to 60% and 80% of the AMI. In addition, the district is considering plans to build a new facility for its Alternative Learning Center on the site, further integrating district services with the community.
A Preferred Employer Program will incentivize district employees to live on the site; however, the development will not be exclusive to district staff.
“It will be open to the community with rents that are more accessible for essential workers, like teachers, in the area,” Walsh says, adding that the units will help lessen the burden in the neighborhood as it stands today. “It’s a very expensive area where rents are through the roof, even with all the recent multifamily supply Austin has gotten in recent months.”
The developer has spent the last year doing its due diligence, and the project now is in the design and permitting phase. Groundbreaking is slated for next year with completion expected in late 2028 or early 2029.
Walsh says this is the first time The NRP Group has worked hand in hand with a school district, and it’s been an educational process for all involved.
“Obviously we are the experts in multifamily housing, and the decision-makers are experts in curriculum and running a school district,” he notes.
It would have been easier for the school district to put the land on the market for the highest bidder, but that would have opened up the site to be transformed into a luxury rental community. Instead, the plan allows the district to retain ownership and achieve its goals of affordability, adding green and park space as well as public art, incorporating nonprofit space, and respecting the heritage of the site and the neighborhood.
When evaluating the financing, the partners realized that tax credit housing wouldn’t work because the AMI targeting would primarily be below the salaries of where teachers and district staff are.
“They aren’t making what [Austin’s] big tech workers are, but they are over-income for LIHTCs,” says Walsh, adding that it will be conventionally financed through private equity investment and lending.
He reiterates that when it comes to workforce housing, there are only so many tools in the toolbox.
“Sometimes it’s things like this where you have land that is being underutilized that can serve a higher purpose,” he says. “What stands out to me is the willingness of the school district to take something that is no longer serving its best use and create something for the public. It served generations of Austinites as an elementary and a middle school, and now it can provide quality housing for families.”
Collaborating for a Cause
Back in the Bay Area, leading affordable housing nonprofits Abode Communities and Mercy Housing California are partnering on a multifamily development, 231 Grant, for educators and school employees that involves four Santa Clara County districts.
While Mercy Housing California and Abode Communities have worked on a number of partnerships since the early 2000s, this was a natural fit: Mercy Housing has the Northern California experience, while Abode has experience creating affordable housing on school district surplus land in Los Angeles.
“Just like so many other Californians, teachers are really feeling the pinch, and it’s particularly acute in Northern California,” says Holly Benson, president and CEO of Abode Communities. “Working with our school district partners, we’ve come to know how hard it is to run the administrative functions and keep campuses clean.”
Ed Holder, vice president of real estate development at Mercy Housing California, credits Santa Clara County supervisor Joe Simitian for being the driving force behind the project and bringing together the stakeholders—Palo Alto Unified School District, Los Altos School District, Mountain View Whisman School District, and Foothill-De Anza Community College District.
The community, which is expected to be completed in summer 2025, will provide 110 units. It is being developed on county-owned land in the heart of Palo Alto and in walking distance to Stanford University.
“Abode Communities’ partnership with Mercy creates a unique opportunity to deliver housing without reliance on LIHTCs,” says Benson. “Bringing housing to this high-resource location ensures staff and teachers can live where they work.”
The development is designed to accommodate families, with studio, one-, and two-bedroom floor plans. It will feature a dog run, a playground, and flexible spaces that can accommodate larger groups and events.
According to Benson, the rents will be between 20% and 40% below market—or $800 to $1,700 less than market rents per month.
Meta, formerly Facebook, committed a $25 million grant to the development as a way to help create affordable housing for educators. The four local school districts also are contributing funding to the development. Additional financing is being provided by Santa Clara County, the city of Palo Alto, Century Housing, and the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund.
The development also is personal for Holder and Benson; Holder’s mom was a teacher, and Benson’s father was a teacher.
“Organizationally, it’s completely in line with our missions,” adds Benson. “We spend a lot of time working to create new housing opportunities, but we are still seeing a widening gap of folks who can’t attain affordable housing. As housing becomes more and more unaffordable, the threat of homelessness becomes very real for families who may already be balancing their limited resources to meet household needs. Teachers play too important of a role in our communities, and this is just one way we can continue to be innovative for the greater good.”
