Teachers Can't Afford to Live Here. School District Has a Solution

If you're a family in the San Francisco Bay Area with an empty room, apartment, or backyard cabana, one local school district has an unusual ask: Rent it to a teacher. NBC Bay Area reports that the cost of housing and rentals in that part of California remains through the roof, and teachers are increasingly finding they can't afford to live there. The Milpitas Unified School District has been especially hard hit, losing a bunch of teachers at the end of the 2021-22 school year because living costs were just too high and having a difficult time pulling new ones in. That's why the district sent out a message this week to all parents via a communications app, imploring them to consider putting up a teacher in their own homes.

"We need your help in supporting our MUSD educators!" the appeal read, offering an online form to fill out for anyone interested, per KTVU. "If you know someone who may have a room coming up for rent, please share this information with them." The message said seven teachers gave notice at the end of the school year; the Washington Post notes that the school's superintendent, Cheryl Jordan, put that number at 10 last month. At a school board meeting last month, a resolution was unanimously passed in support of finding housing for the workforce in the district, which lies in Santa Clara County—a county that in 2016 was found by real estate site Redfin to have zero affordable homes for teachers earning the state's average salary.

Besides putting out the plea to parents, Jordan says the district is working with a group that assists teachers in finding loans in costly markets, as well as with a developer that helps local homeowners plan and build "alternative dwelling units" on their properties that they can then rent out. As for the request sent to parents, a district spokesman tells the Post the response has been promising, with dozens of interested parties considering making a new set of keys. "This is evidence that our entire [team], which includes our teachers and classified support staff, is valued by our Milpitas community members, parents, and caregivers," Jordan notes. (More teachers stories.)