Cities look at subsidized housing to stem teacher shortages

[nitpicker]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEACHERS_HOUSING_SHORTAGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-01-03-02-10-38

Jan 3, 2:10 AM EST

Cities look at subsidized housing to stem teacher shortages

By LISA LEFF
Associated Press


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- As the days get shorter, first grade teacher Esmeralda Jiménez watches the dimming afternoon sky outside her classroom window the way her pupils watch the clock at dismissal time.

The studio apartment Jiménez rents for $1,783 a month, or 43 percent of her salary, is located in one of San Francisco's sketchiest neighborhoods. Getting home involves running a gantlet of feces-strewn sidewalks, popping crack pipes, discarded needles and menacing comments - daily irritants that become more daunting after dark.
(snip)

It's a scenario that has Jiménez wondering if she should find a profession that pays more, and public officials here and in other cities looking at housing as a tool to prevent the exodus of young educators like her.

Inspired by the success in the heart of the Silicon Valley of a 70-unit teachers-only apartment complex, school districts in high cost-of-living areas and rural communities that have long struggled to staff classrooms are considering buying or building rent-subsidized apartments as a way to attract and retain teachers amid concerns of a looming shortage.

Housing costs especially have become a point of friction for teachers in expensive cities such as Seattle, where teachers who went on a one-week strike in September said they could not afford to live in the same city as the children they teach.
(snip)

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. A "teacher shortage"?

Now how could THAT have happened?

You mean after 15 years of "reform" in the Bush-Obama era we:

1. not only don't have the "better" teachers we were promised; but

2. we don't have even have enough teachers ( i.e. bodies) to go around (i.e. staff classrooms).

Genius!

Sheer genius.

[Conch]

7. Reform had only a part to play.

Underfunding and poorly spent funding are the bigger problem.


You get what you pay for, if what you pay isn't substantial enough to maintain employees you get high turnover and/or under qualified people filling many positions.

[lostnfound]

2. Why the hell is our economy so distorted that "middle-class jobs" don't support middle-class life?

The amount of ground that has been lost is mind-boggling.

[DustyJoe]

3. middle class life vs wages

It looks from the outside that it's not the wage but the cost of living.
The $1,700 a month for a studio apt here in my area would rent a 4-5 bedroom ranch home
with 5+ acres and stables.
The jobs and wages in this case seems to be less of a problem than just the area. The
city has the right idea to try and keep the teachers living within reasonable distance
from their schools in recognizing the rents are out of control for any teacher in any area.
A subsidy would act as a raise in reducing the teachers expenses.

[YvonneCa]

4. It's both, high cost of living AND stagnant wages...

...here in California. Not sure where you live, but here the cost of living has long been a challenge. But due to the 2007-8 crash, that problem was made worse. States like CA pushed out teachers with seniority to save money and furloughed the teachers they kept on staff. That means wages were cut, not just frozen for years.

The last years I was teaching before I retired in 2008, my commute was 70 miles each way. That was to afford to buy a house.

[Conch]

8. Cost of living started with Prop 13

In 1978 CA decided to limit property taxes and property values and cost of living increased thereafter.

[YvonneCa]

9. Not true. n/t

[Conch]

10. Thanks for the in-depth clarification but I still believe I am right.

Income tax and capital gains tax increased dramatically as a result... taxing your income isn't that cost of living?

Also, people who had property in 1978 have a great property rate and are disinclined to sell because if they were to move they would be hit with a much higher property tax. As much of California land and property has been parceled because of the increased population people with bigger tracts of land (from the 70s) are not moving. S0, you have a lot of people moving to CA and lots of people not moving out. This increases property costs.

(Not so ) Ironically there are ways that corps can sell their properties without a resetting of value. So, they don't have to pay the increase value tax that a home owner does... that lack of taxation of corporations... where do you suppose that revenue is generated? Park entrance fees, licenses for recreation, so on.

Further, because of the drop in property taxes the state has made that revenue elsewhere like increased and created fees (all over the place but new building/ construction fees..so, it technically isn't a tax but it's an increase in construction implemented to replace the revenue lost from the 1978 Prop), other taxes, fines.


I am not saying that the lone reason property and cost of living went up is Prop 13 but it would be naive (at best) to think otherwise.

[elleng]

5. More 'unintended consequences,'

the success in the heart of the Silicon Valley.

[Starry Messenger]

6. Yep.