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Recently, NAWRB published an article addressing the scenario of a professional, in our case a teacher named Rachel, working in a city she could not afford to live in, and the consequences of this situation on her life. The city of San Francisco—home to one of the most expensive housing markets in the country—is taking steps to resolve this problem.
This week, the San Francisco Unified School District entered an agreement with Mayor Ed Lee’s Office of Housing to construct 140 rental housing units for SFUSD teachers in the Outer Sunset neighborhood. “I think this has been many, many years in the making, so this is a very big deal,” stated board member Matt Haney.
As part of the agreement, 60 of the housing units would be set aside for teachers and the rest for low-income teachers’ aides. The building could be ready for educators as soon as 2022, upon the completion of a projected 18-month construction period.
In a city where teachers can only afford .04 percent of homes, this housing development is a glimmer of hope in a long story of low affordability.
When a person is priced out of the area where they work, the impact on their quality of life can be devastating. The simple adjustment of having to commute may mean hours on the road, thousands of dollars a year spent on gas, and unavoidable changes to a person’s routine and personal life.
Cities around the country are proactively working to ease the affordable housing crisis for educators, but what happens to those who don’t secure one of these housing units or to other professionals who are priced out and struggle to access affordable housing resources?
This initiative by San Francisco, and other cities, is a creative, innovative solution, but the issue of rising housing costs remains all-encompassing and ever-present.