Election hopefuls propose using VSB property as housing for teachers
The San Francisco story of a highschool teacher making US$65,000 a year who lost her home to foreclosure sent a gasp through the Bay Area, which is suffering from a housing crisis in which the gap between essential-workers’ incomes and the affordability of shelter has long been widening.
The moment prompted city and school officials to commit more than US$40 million in public funds last year toward up to 150 units of affordable housing specifically for teachers.
To be sure, it will be just one project in a big bucket of need that is complex, but the goal of doing something to keep teachers from leaving the city or profession inspired a Vancouver plan.
It’s being touted by civic election candidates hoping to land a party nomination to run for city hall.
“It’s more conceptual for now,” says youth advocate Aaron Leung, who is aiming to be on Vision Vancouver’s school board slate.
He and Tanya Paz, who is looking to be a Vision candidate for council, hope their plan will lead to a pilot project because “it’s been an extremely hard time retaining and attracting teachers (in Vancouver).”
“It would be looking at portions of school sites and not demolishing them, but seeing how empty land on those parcels could be used for building non-market rental housing for teachers.
“In San Francisco, they had to buy sites, which is very expensive,” says Leung. “We would be looking at leveraging existing assets.”
Housing teachers is vital, but “our proposal (on this) would include (access to housing for) all school-board employees, support workers, administrators,” says Katharine Shipley, president of the Vancouver Secondary Teachers Association, a local of the BCTF. “There are lots of models with a mix of market and non-market units. People used to say there’s that woman with her crazy idea, but if we can put people on the moon, why can’t we build non-market housing for our employees?”
Shipley says that exit surveys were done in 2017 when “triple the amount of teachers, compared to usual, left, and anecdotally we heard that people want to work in the communities they live in and Vancouver is not a community they can live in” because of the high cost.
The survey results will come in the next few weeks, “and we will be able to see if they confirm what we have been hearing about people thinking of moving to ( Vancouver) Island so they can buy a house or even if they don’t buy, moving to rent,” says Shipley.
She says there has been muttering in the past about using land around John Oliver Secondary School in East Vancouver for condos and town houses. “Or how about the large space behind Van Tech (Vancouver Technical Secondary School)?” Shipley asked.
Vancouver school board chair Janet Fraser says there have been challenges with teachers choosing to move to the suburbs so they can “teach in their home district.”
In 2016, a long-range facilities plan looked at using non-school sites and a portion of school sites for housing, and there was “general support at a high level.”
“More recently, we have been talking to the city about housing on school land and we are open to the possibility,” says Fraser, adding, however, that “we have to make very thoughtful decisions about that because our mission is ultimately our students and their success.”