Would you want to be roommates with your teachers?
As of this week, at least 55 families in Northern California’s Milpitas United School District have responded to a request asking them to offer housing for district teachers.
Superintendent Cheryl Jordan confirmed the number in a statement cited by NPR Wednesday. It includes more responses than the 34 she confirmed to NBC last week.
“We’ve lost out on some employees that we tried to recruit because once they see how much it costs to live here, they determine that it’s just not possible,” Jordan explained in an interview with NBC.
Surveys conducted by the school in 2017 and 2021 “showed that some staff members had long commutes and lacked steady housing,” Jordan said during a recent school board meeting.
A resolution from the school board last month explained that district employees have found it increasingly difficult to purchase or rent a home within a 15-mile radius or close to the MUSD.
“The gap between those who can afford a home in the San Francisco Bay Area and those who cannot, is widening at an alarming rate,” it said.
NBC said that the district – a town in the San Francisco Bay area near San Jose – lost seven teachers last school year and the high cost to live in the community prevented a prospective interim principal from taking a job in the district. So, MUSD sent out a note on a communications app asking for families to offer rooms to teachers. There is a form available on the district website for interested families.
According to a MUSD certified salary schedule for 2021-2022, annual salaries start at $67,163. Although this is higher than the national average salary of 55,628 reported by the Social Security Administration as of 2020, it doesn’t hold up to the rent prices in Milpitas.
This Wednesday, a Zillow search of homes available for rent in Milpitas showed that the least expensive option was a one bedroom available for approximately $2,195. This far exceeds NerdWallet’s suggestion to spend 30% of income on rent, which would put a Milpitas teacher in the school’s first salary step in a home with rent less than $1,675.
Per an August report from Rent.com, this is still slightly less than the average nationwide rent of $1,770.
According to MUSD spokesperson Scott Forstner, the district had not heard from any employees who had secured a unit through the request form as of Wednesday.
In addition to working with families to provide affordable housing for teachers, the school district resolution from last month “supports partnerships involving homebuilders, community groups, and local governments to enhance affordability and to increase production of affordable workforce housing.”
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