“Teacher Housing” coming to the West Valley

• Affordable housing for teachers and other local school staff will be on its way to the West Valley following the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors’ March 14 consideration of the acquisition of a site at 10333 N. Wolfe Road in Cupertino.
• County Supervisors Joe Simitian and Otto Lee proposed the effort to enable local teachers and school staff to live in the communities they serve.
• The project turns lengthy commutes into time working with and for kids.

SAN JOSE – If approved by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, affordable housing for local teachers and other school staff will be on its way to the West Valley. The Board will consider the acquisition of a large parcel of land in Cupertino for affordable housing, beginning with a “teacher housing” project. County Supervisors Joe Simitian and Otto Lee proposed the effort to bring educator housing to the West Valley last year, building upon the work Simitian championed in Palo Alto to develop housing for local teachers and school staff at 231 Grant Avenue. That North County project is anticipated to break ground this spring, and Simitian said he’s “excited about expanding the effort to West Valley school districts and their staff.”

“No one wins when local teachers and school employees have to commute from miles and miles away,” said Simitian. “Time in the car is time that can’t be spent helping a struggling student; or preparing lesson plans; or attending any number of events that make up the fabric of our schools. By having teachers and school staff work and live nearby, we’re strengthening their role in the community.”

“As a former school board member, and the son of two public school teachers, I’ve seen how much it helps our schools, educators, and communities when local teachers and school staff are able to live in the communities they serve,” said Simitian. “I’ve been pleased by the progress we’ve made in the northern part of our County, and I’m excited we now have an opportunity to make this happen in other parts of our County as well.”

“This just makes so much sense,” said Cupertino Mayor Hung Wei, who served on the Fremont Union High School District School Board for 11 years. “It helps keep our schools strong and provides additional affordable housing in our community. It’s a win-win.”

Simitian noted that the high cost of living in Santa Clara County makes it particularly difficult for schools to attract and retain teaching staff, many of whom have to choose between exorbitant housing costs or long and exhausting commutes from more affordable areas.

At the same time, school employees, particularly those in the early and middle parts of their careers, are part of what is sometimes referred to as the “missing middle” — they earn a bit too much to qualify for traditional affordable housing, but can’t afford the high cost of housing in Santa Clara County. A Redfin study from 2016, for example, found that virtually none of the homes available for sale in Santa Clara County were affordable on the average teacher salary.

And according to a report on Educator Workforce Housing from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center, 31% of teacher households across California who rent are characterized as “cost burdened”, meaning they typically spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Rent burden is even further exacerbated for other school employees who are critical to the operations of our schools and the composition of our communities: 43% of office staff, 50% of teacher assistants, 42% of janitors and maintenance workers, and 55% of food service workers are characterized as rent burdened.

“This is exciting news,” said Jason Baker, School Board Member in the Campbell Union High School District and former Mayor of Campbell. “This is a great way to attract and retain topflight teachers and school staff —  the people who are essential to our schools and our students.”

“If we’re going to continue to attract great teachers and staff, we’ve got to attack the high cost of housing head on,” said Simitian. “Great teachers make great schools and great schools make great communities.”

“The quality of our kids’ education suffers when teachers are exhausted from commuting over an hour each way daily,” said Supervisor Lee. “I have known many younger teachers who have left because of the high cost of living in our county. To support our children and their learning, we must care for those teaching them and provide affordable housing. Our teachers already sacrifice so much for us. This Cupertino site will help us keep teachers in the area and attract new ones to benefit our kids and schools. I look forward to discussing this item further at the next Board meeting.”

Simitian said the need for this kind of housing became widely apparent back in 2018 and 2019 when he moderated a series of Teacher Town Halls that included open mic/listening sessions about how the housing crisis had affected teachers. Co-hosted by SupportTeacherHousing, the town halls included hundreds of teachers who shared their personal stories of the struggles they faced to make ends meet while trying to “be there for their students.”

In 2018, Simitian proposed the County develop a pilot teacher housing project on County-owned land at 231 Grant Avenue in Palo Alto. Aiming to break ground in Spring 2023, the 110-unit project will offer housing to teachers and staff employed by Mountain View Whisman School District, Los Altos School District, Palo Alto Unified School District, and Foothill-De Anza Community College District, which have contributed funds to the project; as well as school districts in South San Mateo County, thanks to a $25 million grant from Meta (formerly Facebook).

Simitian said that progress on the North County project led various stakeholders in the West Valley community to reach out to see if bringing another teacher housing project to the County might be possible. “As we move closer to breaking ground on our pilot project, I’m excited that we now have a chance to get yet another effort under way.”   

Simitian also noted that community engagement and input will be essential to shaping the project. “To make a project like this work we need three things: a piece of dirt, funding, and community support,” said Simitian. “Hopefully, after next week’s vote, we’ll have a site. Then we can start working with a developer, school districts, local educators and school staff, city governments, neighborhood groups, community members and various other stakeholders as we work to pull the other two pieces together. 

“Some of these folks have crushing commutes. They’re already exhausted when they arrive at school, minutes before the bell rings. Then they have to hop back in the car the minute the official school day ends. They want to give their best, but the extraordinary cost of housing in our area often makes that impossible. And,” said Simitian, “we’ve got teachers who are essentially ‘visitors’ in the communities where they teach, rather than local residents who can contribute to the communities in which our kids learn.”

The proposed project site comprises 5.159 acres and is located at 10333 N. Wolfe Road, Cupertino. On March 14^th, the Board will vote on a preliminary purchase agreement. If approved, the County will have a year to conduct additional diligence, which includes obtaining the necessary project entitlements. Only a portion of the site will be used for the teacher housing. The remainder will be available for additional housing following community engagement and input.

Simitian, who grew up in the South Bay as a teacher’s son, said, “I can recall the days when a teacher could own their own home here in Santa Clara County. I know we can’t turn back the clock, but I’m convinced that there are solutions to this problem and that we can find them by working together.”

For more information, see the legislative file.