Teacher housing plan gets $3 million nod
City Council sets aside funds toward construction of up to 120 rental units near the county Superior Court building
A proposal to one day build up to 120 rental housing units in Palo Alto for local teachers got a boost this week when the City Council unanimously voted to set aside $3 million for the project.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who is spearheading the effort, said it’s crucial because teachers are forced to move farther and farther away from where they work as housing prices continue to rise throughout the Bay Area and local school districts struggle to attract or retain high-quality teachers.
“Too many teachers are telling me their energies are spent on our highways and not our kids,” Simitian said Tuesday. “It’s getting tougher and tougher for the teachers in our schools to have a real connection, the connection that comes from living in the communities (in which they teach).”
Sarah Chaffin, founder of Support Teacher Housing, which along with Bay Area Forward convened a series of teacher town halls with Simitian earlier this year, said she’s met teachers who are homeless, some who sleep in bunk bends and others who run out of money for food toward the end of each month.
“Making $80 (thousand) to $120,000 may sound like a good salary, but when rent is $3,500 a month … these people are living paycheck to paycheck,” Chaffin said Tuesday.
Simitian said the plan has the support of the full board of supervisors, which earlier this year agreed to donate 1.5 acres of countyowned land at 231 Grant Ave. next to the Superior Court building in Palo Alto, and set aside $6 million toward building an estimated 60 to 120 housing units at the site. The housing is expected to cost about $36 million.
Simitian said he still needs to get five school districts to set aside a combined $3 million, find a mortgage lender to provide a $24 million no-interest or low-interest loan, and then return to the board with possible designs.
Simitian said “we’ll find a way” to get funding from Palo Alto Unified, Mountain View Whisman, Mountain View-Los Altos and Los Altos school districts and Foothhill-DeAnza Community College District, adding it’s important that they have “some skin in the game.”
He said he’s held productive talks with two potential mortgage lenders and plans to discuss the idea with a third lender in the next couple of weeks. While acknowledging the plan is still in the early stages, Simitian said it’s made a lot of headway just six months after the idea was sparked. The plan is regarded as an experiment because if it succeeds, similar projects could be developed for not only teachers but also tech workers and other professionals who earn too much to housing qualify but for not low-income enough to comfortably pay upward of $3,000 a month on rent. Simitian said the donation of public — and, possibly private — property is a key because rents then can be offered at a lower rate. He said the donation of land for 231 Grant, valued at about $12 million, is intended to help keep rents at least one-third lower than market rate. The mortgage loan for the site will be paid back through rent over a 20or 30-year period, he added. “I think the project itself is a significant contribution, but it’s equally if not more important as a way to develop more momentum,” he said, adding that everyone in the community stands to benefit by retaining highquality teachers, whether they or not, have because children high-performing in school schools help keep property values high. Chaffin said she hopes 231 Grant will serve as a “watershed moment” for future projects involving donated land because “120 units is definitely not going to solve the housing crisis for the missing middle.”