A Lesson In-Progress: Education Workforce Housing

On top of recovering from the pandemic, education faces daunting challenges. Districts are facing an unprecedented shortage of teachers with the difficulty of attracting new staff, while salaries remain relatively low in a climate of severely escalating housing costs. The average starting teacher’s salary in California is about $45,000. Over 40% of Local Education Agencies (LEA) report entry-level teacher salaries below 80% of Area Median Income (AMI). The National Low Income Housing Coalition has reported that in order to afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment at fair market rent in California, full-time workers need to earn $39.03 per hour, almost double the starter teacher’s salary. In Los Angeles rents have escalated 20% in the past year, 14.2% in Riverside-San Bernardino, and 25.4% in San Diego. While parents want the best for their kids, this reality causes teachers to live far from those they serve or in various alternative living arrangements.

One solution is for LEAs to build affordable workforce housing on LEA land – surplus school property or on existing school campuses. Only four such projects have been built so far, but many districts are considering this possibility. While LEAs are not in the business of building housing, they have partnered with affordable housing specialists to provide quality housing solutions.

Thomas Safran & Associates teamed with WHA to create the Norwood Learning Village with the Los Angeles Unified School District. The site was a former district parking lot and now includes 29 affordable units in an attractive complex designed within a historic neighborhood. Over 900 applications were received for the units. An underground parking level provides for both residents and staff of the adjacent Norwood Street Elementary School. Significant study of the architectural character of contextual historic properties resulted in a distinctive collection of styles for the six buildings reflective of the neighborhood, meeting the objectives of the University Park Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ). It also includes a community center as a quality social space and outreach center.

Recipient of a 2018 Gold Nugget Merit Award, Norwood helps dispel the notion that workforce housing is inferior and will degrade the neighborhood. This is the perceived issue in San Jose’s Almaden Valley, an upper middle-class neighborhood opposed to building teacher workforce housing on sites near that district’s headquarters. The district needs to recruit about 100 teachers each year because it keeps losing them due to high housing costs.

CityLAB of UCLA with the Center for Cities + Schools and the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley have published a handbook to help guide LEAs on how to start thinking about workforce housing opportunities.

Teachers are special people that love their jobs and are important shapers of our collective future. When asked why they don’t just increase their salary, it’s just not that easy. But leveraging land that LEAs already own can be an important tool to provide housing to retain our teachers and staff.