How to tackle both the housing crisis and the teacher shortage: Let school districts build more housing.

Buying a home in Monterey County is a challenge to the average person, and the rental market is tight. This isn’t a surprise to anyone who already lives here.

But imagine being a teacher at the start of your career and with a new credential in hand, and trying to come to Monterey County to enter this most noble profession. The housing crisis not only impacts individuals and families, but also institutions. This includes the Salinas City Elementary School District, the institution of 15 schools, 8,000-plus students and 1,000 employees, which I lead as superintendent.

On Feb. 15, a report authored by housing and education research groups at UC Berkeley and UCLA was released, and it proposes a bold way of advancing an idea that only a few districts statewide have adopted. Titled “Education Workforce Housing in California: Developing the 21st-Century Campus,” the report notes that many of the state’s 300,000 public school teachers can’t afford to live in the communities where they work.

In addition to the housing crunch, there’s also a well-documented teacher and staffing crunch that school districts face. We need more teachers credentialed every year to keep up with demand, but once that happens, where will they live?

The bold proposition posited in the report is this: Every county in California has land owned by local educational agencies potentially suited for developing housing. According to the analysis done by the university researchers, there are 7,068 properties with potentially developable land of one acre or more, totaling 75,000 acres statewide. “More than half of these properties are located where beginning teachers face housing affordability challenges,” the report notes. “More than 40 percent of these properties are located in areas that are likely to be competitive for key affordable housing financing tools.”

The good news is that in Monterey County, there are 111 potentially developable such properties, totaling 1,903 acres. An astonishing 89 percent of those Monterey County properties are located in areas where the median asking rent is unaffordable to new teachers.

Educational workforce housing developments have been implemented in two local educational agencies in California: Los Angeles Unified and Santa Clara Unified, but interest is growing. The report notes that Soledad Unified successfully passed Measure N in 2020, resulting in $13.5 million to help fund education workforce housing; the district has identified a piece of land, owned by the city of Soledad, as a potential site for the development.

SCESD is just in the beginning stages of investigating the potential to be found in developing educational workforce housing. One of the key recommendations of the report is that educational institutions develop partnerships with the community before the process. It’s our hope that the community will join us as we investigate what’s possible.

DR. REBECA ANDRADE is the superintendent of the Salinas City Elementary School District.