Roundup: California strives to tackle housing crisis to keep teachers in classrooms

SACRAMENTO, the United States, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) — In California, the most populous U.S. state with the most school students, public schools have stepped up addressing a growing crisis: the unaffordable housing market that is driving teachers out of the state.
California officials have turned to innovative solutions to keep educators from leaving with the cost of living skyrocketing and teachers’ salaries lagging.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond unveiled a plan last month to develop land owned by school districts into 2.3 million new housing units.
The plan involved collaborating with various stakeholders, including construction professionals, labor unions, and school districts, to identify and overcome obstacles in housing development.
While some school districts have already embarked on such projects, the state aims to have all districts consider this possibility. Thurmond emphasized that this new strategy is aimed at retaining the education workforce.
Steven Ma, a veteran educator in the San Francisco Bay Area, told Xinhua on Wednesday that the housing crisis in California affects everyone, but educators in the Bay Area face exceptionally severe challenges due to the region’s extraordinarily high cost of living.
“In affluent areas like Palo Alto, the high cost of living creates significant obstacles for school districts in recruiting capable educators. It’s not a lack of interest from teachers, but rather the inability to maintain a reasonable standard of living in these expensive communities on a teacher’s salary,” he said.
His observation was echoed by Teri Baldwin, president of Palo Alto Educators Association. “Our teachers, especially our newer teachers who are lower on the salary scale, they can’t afford to live close by,” Baldwin told TV station KQED in a recent report.
Ma said he personally knew many teachers who have to share housing in order to live in the districts where they teach.
“That might be okay for a young teacher, but for teachers in their 40s or 50s who have a family and children, it’s a very serious and challenging problem,” said Ma, a member of the Regents Selection Advisory Committee of University of California.
California’s housing market has been notoriously unaffordable for years, with home prices and rents outpacing the salaries of many professionals. Though California boasts the highest average teacher salary in the nation at 95,160 U.S. dollars a year, according to the National Education Association, teachers are struggling to afford housing in the state.
Higher home prices and elevated mortgage rates push California housing affordability to a near-17-year low in the second quarter of this year, according to the California Association of Realtors report last week.
The median home price in California stands at about 906,600 dollars, and a minimum annual income of 236,800 dollars is needed to qualify for the purchase of the median-priced, single-family home in the state, the report said.
In recent years, school districts across California have experienced drastic teacher shortages, partly due to increasing housing costs, according to the 2022 report “Education Workforce Housing in California” by the University of California, Berkeley.
In high-cost counties like Alameda, only 1.2 percent of homes on the market are affordable for the average teacher in 2022, a drastic drop from 14.5 percent in 2012, the report showed.
As a result of “rapidly rising housing costs” and “stagnant incomes,” teacher recruitment and turnover challenges have grown “substantially” in California, with the average teacher turnover rate at 12 percent, said the report.
Experts worry that high teacher turnover could result in a disproportionate impact on already disadvantaged students in California due to less consistency in teaching and relationship-building with students.
“The state’s efforts to increase teacher housing are positive steps,” said Ma. “California’s economic strength and competitiveness are closely tied to its educational system. To maintain and improve educational quality and student outcomes, providing competitive resources is crucial,” said Ma.
“If we fail to support our teachers, particularly in addressing their housing challenges, we risk losing valuable educators,” he added. ■