County backs West Valley teacher housing proposal
Supervisors vote unanimously to start looking for building sites
The West Valley could get new, affordable housing for teachers and school employees, who historically have not been able to afford to live in the communities where they work.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously May 24 to pursue options to develop teacher housing in the West Valley, similar to a project in Palo Alto.
“We know there's a shortage of affordable housing for educators,” Simitian said in a press release. “But there are solutions. When our kids' teachers can spend fewer hours in the car each day, stick around to help a struggling student, participate in after-school activities and put down roots in the community, it's really a winner all around.”
Housing advocates said the project would address the “missing middle” in affordable housing, which accounts for those who cannot afford market-rate rent but make too much to qualify for public benefits.
The proposal directs the county to identify possible project sites in the West Valley for teacher housing. Simitian and Supervisor Otto Lee, who spearheaded the proposal, said the West Valley is “broadly defined” as far as where the housing could be built.
“`Broadly defined' was language I recommended as supervisor Lee and I were crafting the document together to suggest that we shouldn't inhibit or limit the possibilities because either a participating district or a potential site wasn't within a certain prescribed boundary,” Simitian said in an interview. “Bluntly, we have people driving halfway to hell and back to get to their jobs every day. … Worrying about the fact that a site or district is one town over from whatever somebody thinks West Valley is, is not going to be a worry of mine.”
This broader definition includes Fremont Union High School District, which serves Cupertino, Sunnyvale and parts of Saratoga and San Jose.
“Teachers who live in the community can stay longer after school to tutor and answer questions, be a coach for sports, volunteer as an adviser for clubs and support extracurricular student activities,” Cupertino City Councilmember Hung Wei, who formerly served of the district's board of trustees, said in a statement.
Simitian said West Valley school district and city officials reached out to the board after it approved a pilot educator workforce housing project in Palo Alto for schools in north Santa Clara County and southern San Mateo County.
The Palo Alto project would bring 110 apartments for teachers and staff who work at Santa Clara and San Mateo County schools.
A 2016 study commissioned by Redfin real estate brokerage showed that the average teacher could not afford a home in Santa Clara County. It found 43% of office staff, 50% of teacher's assistants, 42% of janitors and maintenance workers and 55% of food service workers are characterized as rent burdened.
“I am wholeheartedly in support of efforts to build teacher housing close to where they teach,” Los Gatos Mayor Rob Rennie said. “Teachers can no longer afford to buy houses in our area, making it harder and hard to replace retiring teachers that were lucky enough to buy 20-plus years ago. The lack of affordability is going to be a big problem in trying to replace retiring teachers.”