There’s a Teacher Shortage Looming—Is Real Estate to Blame?
We’ve heard about police officers and firefighters priced out of the neighborhoods in which they work. Now a new class of civil servant is facing the same problem:Teachers are having their own housing crisis.
The housing market “hit low-income Americans hardest, but increasingly, it also means middle-income earners who hold key jobs—like teachers—can’t afford to live where they work,” reported Marketplace. “It’s a problem facing all high-cost communities: big cities, wealthy suburbs, and tiny resort towns.”
“Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education—a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers,” wrote The New York Times.
Bay Area’s KTVU station reported that it was getting harder and harder to find good teachers to fill the open slots. A big reason: “the lack of affordable housing in the city.”
One disabled Sonoma Country teacher was crowned “the face of Healdsburg’s housing crunch,” by a local paper. “After 10 years living there, it looks like a 65 percent jump in rent—from $850 per month to $1,400—is going to force her out,” wrote the Press Democrat.
The average teacher salary hovers around $45,000, though in the Bay Area it’s about $60,000. Not that the jump helps much. As the Press Democrat pointed out, most families pulling in $150,000 a year can’t afford a home in those parts.
The two-fold crisis comes during a larger national debate about education, standardized There's a Teacher Shortage Looming—Is Real Estate to Blame? - Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com: