On the premises of an elementary school, a Daly City school district celebrated the launch of an inexpensive housing complex designed exclusively for teachers on Tuesday.
California’s exorbitant housing costs are making it difficult for schools all around the state to draw and keep teachers. The state as a whole is looking to Daly City as an example of what it has done.
The newest residential development in San Mateo County is called Eastmoor Heights. Its purpose is to save school personnel from having to make the difficult choice to vacate the premises.
The Jefferson Elementary School District became the first K–8 district in the county and one of the few in the state to offer workforce housing on Tuesday morning when they ceremoniously opened the new complex.
The recently constructed 56-unit complex features a communal room, play space for children, laundry facilities, and a courtyard. The best part, though, is that employees can just cross the parking lot to get to Margaret Pauline Brown Elementary School.
“The school is right there, their home is right here!” Daly City mayor Juslyn Manalo stated. “I mean, it’s really wonderful to have our teachers, our staff, rooted in our community, and not living two hours away.”
Many teachers and staff members are just packing up and leaving as a result of this circumstance. It was Priscilla Patalinghug’s decision to make. When the district administrative assistant learned of the worker housing project, she was already hunting for work in another state. She made the decision to stay for a while in order to find out what would happen.
She did, however, meet the requirements for one of the new apartments, and she and her two children now have a brand-new, reasonably priced house that is conveniently close to her place of employment. Of course, without money, nothing occurs. In 2018, the district’s voters approved a $33 million bond measure to pay for housing for school workers in response to a 25% job turnover rate.
It was viewed as a long-term investment. Now, the investment is beginning to provide returns. According to board president Shakeel Ali, the district is really feeling the effects of it.
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The government is paying attention. The California Department of Education is now mandated, according to Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Mary Nicely, to find school-owned assets that might be used for workforce housing.
“There’s 75,000 acres of developable land in California on school sites, that we should be able to access and work on,” Nicely stated. “This is our starting point, where there’s affordable land ready to go.”
Actually, Eastmoor Heights is the neighborhood’s second housing project for school employees. A 122-unit building was opened earlier this year to provide housing for Jefferson Union High School District staff.
In San Mateo County, the average price to buy a house is currently close to two million dollars. Employees are being offered the new rental units at 50% of the market cost at the time of occupancy.
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