These Cities Are Helping Teachers Buy Houses
Teacher salaries just aren’t cutting it anymore in many cities. A recent analysis from the National Education Association (NEA) shows that the value of teacher salaries is lower than it was a decade ago. According to the NEA, the average teacher salary was estimated to be $66,397 for the 2021-2022 school year, and – when adjusted for inflation – teachers are bringing home on average $2,179 less per year than they did a decade ago.
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Park City, UT: A Pioneer in Affordable Housing
Park City, Utah, is just one of these cities. Back in 1995, this small resort city adopted its first policies with incentives to build affordable housing. Now, there are 674 affordable housing units available for rent by those who keep the city running, including teachers, police officers and city employees.
Park City School District has also implemented a pretty sizable pay raise – $7,000 – for teachers a few years ago. This raise included $1,200 for housing and $2,500 for continued education. Before this pay raise, Affordable Housing Project Manager Rhoda Stauffer said it was extremely hard to retain teachers.
“The recent units built and the pipeline of future projects being built both by the city and by nonprofits working in the county are helping to address the issue,” she told Livability in 2018.
Now the Park City School District boasts the highest starting salary in the state for teachers; the starting salary for teachers in the district is $65,523. Stauffer believes this can be easily achieved in any district if they simply adopt similar programs.
“One of the things the city does that every employer could do is to offer their employees assistance with housing. It provides a recruitment and retention tool that helps new employees settle in the area, as well as employees in housing transitions to re-stabilize.”
Teachers Village: A Mixed-Use Development for Educators
Meanwhile, Hartford, CT, took a hint from Newark, NJ, and its thriving Teachers Village, a mixed-use development created with teachers in mind. The Newark Village features three charter schools, a daycare and 203 affordable residential units. Hartford’s version, Teachers Corner Hartford, is a development designed to support and retain teachers.
While on a much more modest scale, with 60 units, with apartments starting at $1,400 a month (and the first month free for educators!), this development will hopefully lead the charge for affordable teacher housing in the city. A new Teachers Village is expected to break ground in Atlanta this fall.
Palo Alto, CA: Tackling the Bay Area Housing Crisis
Teachers in notoriously expensive Palo Alto, CA, are in a dilemma. They can’t afford housing with their median salaries of $69,300, yet they are making too much to qualify for subsidized housing in one of the most expensive markets in the nation. Luckily, this Silicon Valley city is also taking the hint from cities like Newark and Chicago, which have implemented affordable teacher housing. In 2018, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors set aside $6 million for affordable housing aimed at teachers.
Earlier this spring, the affordable housing initiative won a hard-fought victory with the Palo Alto planning commission, upping the development to 55 apartments, 75% of which will target educators.
Statewide Assistance Programs
Affordable rent is excellent, but many teachers are looking to put down more long-term roots. In South Carolina cities like Charleston, Richland and Lexington, the Homes for Heroes program helps them do just that. By offering down payment assistance through forgivable loans or second mortgages, along with low down payment options, the program helps teachers avoid paying a significant upfront amount.
In Michigan, the Teacher Next Door initiative works to help teachers achieve home ownership with step-by-step guidance through the home-buying process. The program allows educators to take advantage of the many different resources available in the state, including grants, down payment assistance and other special programs.
Like teachers in Palo Alto, many in California’s Bay Area are struggling to afford rent, much less the down payment on a home. Enter San Francisco-based startup Landed, which initially worked to assist teachers in the Bay Area by paying half of their down payment. Today Landed works as a resource to provide individuals, employers and municipal governments the infrastructure and guidance to launch and manage shared appreciation down payment assistance programs.
Another California advantage? The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) helped establish the California Teacher and Public Employee Home Loan Program. CalTAP allows teachers, police officers, firefighters and other California public employees to buy a home.
The Teacher Next Door program also helps teachers nationwide learn about the various grants, loans and incentives in their city and state.
Investing in the Future of Education
These initiatives show that the growing need for affordable housing is a critical factor in retaining talented teachers and stabilizing communities. By addressing this challenge, cities hope to create more sustainable and attractive environments for educators.