In 2021, the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) School Board unanimously approved the construction of an affordable housing building for staff and teachers, with the goal of retaining current employees and attracting new ones. This project has been in the works for about eight years by now, but the public will finally start seeing it come to fruition when the District breaks ground and begins construction sometime around 2025. The plan is for the building to be constructed in the Berkeley Adult School parking lot on San Pablo Avenue. However, since Longfellow Middle School was moved to the Berkeley Adult School following the discovery of dry rot on the original campus, the construction will occur adjacent to an active middle school.
All around the country, schools are having trouble retaining teachers and staff as their salaries can’t keep pace with the cost of living. A report published by UCLA states that 35 percent of educators nation-wide are considered “rent-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their pre-tax income on rent. This issue is exacerbated in Berkeley — and California in general — where rent is so high. The median salary of a district employee in 2018 was $45,830, while the average income in Berkeley in general in 2024 was $155,700.
“If young teachers don't feel like they can live in the areas that they teach, then they tend to leave those school districts for other districts that are closer,” said Menaka Gentle, a freshman ethnic studies and social living teacher. “I've heard a lot of stories of people moving to like Concord or Stockton or whatever, and then feeling like they can't really commute here because it's just so far, so then they just move out of the school district.”
Many BUSD employees have dealt with this by living in another city and commuting or getting a second job to make do with salaries that pale in comparison to Berkeley rent prices. This can especially be an issue for teachers early in their careers.
“Subsidized housing for educators would tremendously support retaining teachers, especially early-career educators,” said Spencer Pritchard, a lead teacher in the African American Studies Department at Berkeley High. “The rent is far too high, and many of us live far away.”
“I would certainly consider moving into this housing,” Pritchard said. “I would do this because it would considerably lower my commute, enable me to live in the same community as my students, and build stronger relationships with my colleagues. And I, presumably, would pay way less than rent.”
The money used to construct the housing will mostly come from Measure O, an affordable housing bond passed in 2018 by Berkeley voters, with little funding coming from the school district. Although this measure was a general bond to “create and preserve” affordable housing in the city for a variety of people, it named teachers as one of the specific groups that this housing would be created for.
“The big thing is that these units would be set aside for specific income levels,” says Chris Lee-Egan, a committee member on the BUSD Workforce Housing Design Advisory Committee. He explains that there are different amounts of units set aside for different income levels. For example, about a fourth of units are set aside for those that make 30 percent of the area median income, another fourth are set aside for those that make 50 percent, and about a tenth are set aside for those who make 120 percent, in addition to other pay brackets. “A lot of BUSD teachers and non-teacher classified staff would fall into this — they get to pay a below market-rate rent,” Lee-Egan said.
As a member of the BUSD Workforce Housing Design Advisory Committee, Lee-Egan helped incorporate the public’s feedback and concerns about the affordable housing project. According to him, the Committee had meetings (that the public was welcome to attend) about things such as the effect this building would have on the traffic of the surrounding area, where its dumpsters would be placed, how renters would do laundry, in what direction the building would be oriented, and what the amenities would look like.
One significant public concern is the effect the noisy construction, predicted to last two years, would have on the students at Longfellow. In recent school board meetings, some parents raised concerns over whether their students would be able to focus with noisy construction nearby Longfellow’s temporary classrooms.
According to BUSD’s Assistant Superintendent For Facilities, John Calise, during the Aug. 7 school board meeting, any delay would lead to the project being canceled because of the way it's funded.
“From what I've heard, some of the grant funding they (BUSD) got to build this project is very contingent on them starting by a certain point,” said Lee-Egan, “and if they don't start by a certain point, they'll lose that money.”
There’s no doubt that the 110 affordable housing units in this building would greatly benefit the teachers and staff who get to live there. BUSD desperately needs to retain current teachers and attract new teachers, and this may be one of the best ways to do that. However, some worry that this project is not enough of a good thing — that many of those who are interested in the housing wouldn’t get to use it, as, according to a 2017 BUSD survey, almost ¾ of BUSD teachers and staff who do not own homes said they would be interested in living in this housing.
Amid the concerns, however, construction will begin soon and BUSD will hopefully increase both its teacher retention and number of new teacher applications.
“It would be great to have teachers be able to live in the community that they serve,” finished Gentle.