MEANWHILE, SJUSD ALSO GAINED an incentive to create teacher housing. For years, SJUSD had been losing 200 of its teachers every year, mainly due to housing costs. The district’s budget is limited—82 percent already goes to salaries—so the district is unable to simply raise pay. But if this drain of teachers continues, “there won’t be classroom teachers in San Jose Unified,” warned SJUSD Deputy Superintendent Stephen McMahon, pointing out that the anticipated Google development in downtown San Jose will further drive up housing costs. They need to act—fast.
Last October, SJUSD revealed a proposal to turn nine district-owned properties into new units of affordable housing for its teachers and employees. Officials identified eight schools with old buildings and declining enrollment and suggested bulldozing them and building hundreds of new housing units in their place. The schools would move to another location. Two of those schools, Leland High and Bret Harte Middle, are highly rated schools built in the 1960s in Almaden Valley, a wealthy residential neighborhood in south San Jose—and neighbors roared their displeasure over SJUSD’s proposal.
At the next district meeting, enough alarmed parents, students, and community members from Almaden Valley packed the room that some got locked out. The residents voiced concerns about increased taxes, traffic congestion, construction, their kids’ ability to walk to school, and decreased property values. Most had only just heard about the district’s plan a few days before. The residents felt left out of the decision process, and rumors spread across social media that SJUSD would shut down their schools. Nobody really knew what was going on.
What happened with SJUSD is a classic example of why California’s housing crisis is worsening: Jobs are increasing, but the number of housing units is stagnant. Wage increases are not keeping up with housing cost increases. Many cities are happy to vote for jobs, but not houses. And when officials finally decide to build more housing, they botch it—their typical idea for funding housing projects is to increase taxes or borrow money through bonds, and they fail to engage the community during the planning process. When community members find out about the plan, it comes as a shock. They then push back, fueled by misinformation, stereotypes, and fears, and in the face of such community opposition, city officials back down.
That’s what the residents of Almaden Valley are ready to make happen. Buford Barr, a 75-year-old retired marketer and longtime Almaden Valley resident, told me they’re ready to “fight that to death.” An online petition named “Save Leland and Bret Harte” gained more than 6,450 signatures. Like many others, Barr worried that the district would build high-rise complexes, thus changing the quiet, residential atmosphere of his neighborhood: “It certainly scares me to death. … Huge, huge communities would not fit into Almaden Valley. Look, I’m not trying to hide it—this is an affluent area. This is a very affluent part of the world that shouldn’t be punished because others have unfortunate lives.” Instead, Barr suggested the district should pay their employees more: “We want to support our teachers. This is just not the way to do it.”
Barr bought his house in 1985, just half a mile from Leland High. He saw his two children and two grandsons graduate from that school. Now that school could be demolished to make way for affordable housing, and he worries it would be “a horrific change to my way of life. It’s just going to change everything and make it difficult to enjoy living in Almaden Valley. That may sound superficial, but that’s what life is all about, isn’t it—happiness?”
But for teachers like Sanchez who were also present at that October meeting, the opposition felt more like discrimination. An older couple who sat behind her leaned forward and said to her, “You know the housing isn’t just for teachers, right? It’s for all employees.” As Sanchez sat at the meeting listening to neighbors shout and yell at school district officials, she felt hurt: “It’s like we’re good enough to teach your kids, but we’re not good enough to be your neighbors. … That’s something I will remember forever, that that’s what these people feel about us, even though we work with their kids.”
For now, Sanchez sometimes daydreams of going to law school as she originally planned, but she says she doesn’t regret being a teacher: “I’m going to keep teaching as long as I can. If it gets to a point where I can’t do it anymore, I may have to look at something else, but I hope that day never happens.”
Comments
John R wine
Posted: Fri, 01/18/2019 11:50 amHow does less than $24,000 for rent equal to 45% of an $80,000 salary? Were you referring to after taxes income?
Big Jim
Posted: Mon, 01/21/2019 03:04 pmI was wondering the same thing. $22,800 per year in rent = 29% of gross annual wages. That is not out of line with conventional norms. Most landlords will accept an income of 25% to 30% of gross wages to qualify to rent a place. So things don't seem out of range here.
news2me
Posted: Fri, 01/18/2019 03:13 pmIf a teacher in Calif. is making $80,000 and can't afford to live in a 2-bed $1800/mo. apt. when sharing that apt. Just think about a person who is now living on Social Security and only getting $1000/mo. minus $130 for medicare. Where are they living?
This is very scarey!
news2me
Posted: Fri, 01/18/2019 03:19 pmWhen you build high rise apartments you aren't just getting new neighbors that you will never meet, you are getting LOTS of traffic.
Maybe someone needs to make better plans like building a rent controlled high rise for teachers next to the school they will teach in. Then they can walk to work.
HERRICK SMITH
Posted: Mon, 01/21/2019 06:33 amThank you for that timely article. The term "affordable housing" can be a bit of a lightning rod, and it is poorly understood by the general public.
I love that the article came out just now. I teach AP Microeconomics in a Florida high school. Several years ago a member of Urban Land Institute approached me to offer a simulation that deals with the challenges of revitalizing a decayed urban core. It costs them quite a bit ( I don't know how much), but they don't charge the school or the kids any money, and they are very generous with their time as well. All they want in return is that we take the issues seriously. The simulation, Urban Plan II, requires resolutions to the revitalization that include affordable housing. It's thrilling to witness kids speaking in a way that displays that they have a visceral understanding of some of the causes of housing shortages, and some of the solutions in affordable housing.
So, thank you again. I'll be offering the article to my students to help them wrap their heads around the various aspects of the problems and some possile solutions.
Peace on Earth,
H.A. Smith
AB
Posted: Mon, 01/21/2019 12:48 pmBack in the days of the titans of industry, a company would build housing for their workers and their families. I live in Central Pessnsylvania where there are good examples of this. We have Hershey, PA where the founder of Hershey Chocolate built the town for his employees and provided them with access to affordable housing and entertainment. Milton Hershey himself lived in the town, not in some walled off compound like the modern technology industry titans do. Also close by is the town of Cornwall, PA where much of the iron ore for the American Reveloution was mined. The miners were provided housing in the town and surrounding areas. These were not some rickety shacks, but very well built solid stone homes that still stand and are used to this day ( the mines closed in the early 1970s).
My point is that the modern titans of technology should be held accountable to do the same thing. If they are bringing 20,000 new employees into town, they should have the moral courage to provide the opportunity for housing for these people. I'm not sure it should be a government mandate that they build housing, but at least they should be held publically accountable for taking care of their own employees. The Google's and Facebooks should be building new housing to accomodate their expansion, which would free up other housing for the rest of the community and keep prices down in the housing markets.
What was important to men like Milton Hershey was their faith, which motivated them to take care of those who worked for them. This may be lacking with the current day "Silicon Valley" industry leaders.
Bob R
Posted: Mon, 01/21/2019 02:40 pmThe author seems surprised that this situation is “…provoking social unrest, shaking an economy that’s the fifth largest in the world, and creating a feudalistic society in a state that claims to champion progressive values.” What could possibly be shocking about that? Progressive values are at the very core of this problem! If you examine the governments, (state and city) that are in financial ruin they are overwhelmingly “progressive”. There are also numerous examples of financially ruined governments being restored to ecomomic stability when the voters were wise enough to elect fiscally conservative leaders.
I must say, that the educational system itself (excepting the many decent, dedicated teachers) also bears much of the blame, for promoting decades of “progressive indoctrination” in lieu of true “education”. Now that many of their former “students” are voters, the chickens are coming home to roost.
NBrooks
Posted: Mon, 01/21/2019 06:48 pmSophia, I just wanted to say thank you for your articles. I learn when I read them. I appreciate so much that you get into the middle of issues and present the complexities, giving the reader a new understanding. So helpful and refreshing after the popular "journalism" of today which is often just propaganda from one viewpoint or another.
Thanks, World Magazine for hiring people like Sophia Lee!
Lizzy
Posted: Wed, 01/23/2019 05:05 pmIsn’t this how the road to socialism starts? A sympathetic “victim” and people with no skin in the game willing to decide who of the others get to be winners and who losers. When did we become a culture that decided some people have to give so that others don’t have to make hard choices? I get that it can be hard to make those choices at times I live in Seattle where we face some of the same issues regarding housing. But it isn’t limited to just teachers - middle income earners of all walks of life struggle to afford housing. Once you start privileging one group, why will it stop there? And who gets to decide? The NIMBY response exists because too often people who won’t have to deal with the consequences propose development that will destroy the character or stability of a neighborhood because they want to help one group at the expense of a different group that they see as having too much privilege.
BTW if she is teaching the children of immigrants - how are they able to afford housing in this district?
RRN
Posted: Mon, 01/28/2019 12:43 pmGreed is a reason rents are astronomical. The mortgage on the house next door is $1200 but the owner charges $3000 because she can get it. Rent control, as someone suggested, is not good economics. It is the result of a broken government system that limits home construction.
On another point, I would protest too if my closest high school closed. From the farthest reaches of the school boundaries, it's 9 miles to the next high school. There is no public transportation out there, the school district may not necessarily send a school bus, and some drivers don't believe bicycles belong on the road.