How a Parking Lot Became a Panacea for This School District’s Housing Crisis

停车场如何成为学区住房危机的灵丹妙药

Shirley Cruz used to pass an old parking lot on her way to and from work.

雪莉·克鲁兹上下班的路上经常经过一个旧停车场。

Adjacent to a former high school, the lot was wasted space back then, she says. Uber and Lyft drivers would congregate there, waiting to get assigned to their next rides, Cruz recalls. Otherwise, it sat empty.

她说，这片土地毗邻一所以前的高中，当时被浪费了空间。Cruz回忆道，优步和Lyft的司机会聚集在那里，等待被分配到下一次乘车。否则，它就空着。

In Daly City, California, just south of San Francisco city limits, that’s prime real estate. The owners of the abandoned parking lot and the land beneath it — the local school district — realized as much, and they hatched a plan.

在旧金山市以南的加利福尼亚州戴利市，这是一流的房地产。废弃停车场及其下方土地——当地学区——的所有者也意识到了这一点，他们制定了一个计划。

Now, Cruz doesn’t drive past it. She lives on it — in a district-owned, newly constructed apartment complex occupied exclusively by the teachers and staff of Jefferson Union High School District.

现在，克鲁兹没有开车经过它。她住在它上面——在一个由杰斐逊联合高中区的教师和工作人员专门居住的地区所有的新建公寓楼里。

It’s an approach that is gaining momentum among public school districts nationwide. Many are dealing with vacancies and educator attrition rates at levels that are not only inconvenient but actually harmful to the staff, students and families in their communities. In a number of places, including the San Francisco Bay Area, exorbitant housing costs are responsible for high teacher turnover rates. So districts, often sitting on vast swaths of underused and undeveloped land, are getting creative.

这种方法在全国公立学区中越来越流行。许多人正在处理职位空缺和教育工作者流失率，这不仅不方便，而且实际上对他们所在社区的员工、学生和家庭有害。在包括旧金山湾区在内的许多地方，高昂的住房成本是教师流动率高的原因。因此，通常位于大片未充分利用和未开发土地上的地区正在变得富有创造力。

Jefferson Union High School District is among the first school districts in the country to see its affordable housing project through to completion — staff began moving in over a year ago, and today, the 122-unit complex is fully occupied — but scores of others are not far behind.

杰斐逊联合高中区是美国首批经济适用房项目竣工的学区之一——工作人员一年多前开始搬入，如今，这座拥有122个单元的综合楼已全部入住——但其他许多学区也紧随其后。

In California alone, at least 46 school districts were pursuing workforce housing projects on 83 sites statewide as of March 2022, according to research from the Center for Cities + Schools at the University of California, Berkeley. Projects in North Carolina, Texas, Missouri, Colorado, Illinois and elsewhere are also underway.

根据加州大学伯克利分校城市+学校中心的研究，截至2022年3月，仅在加州，就有至少46个学区在全州83个地点开展劳动力住房项目。北卡罗来纳州、得克萨斯州、密苏里州、科罗拉多州、伊利诺伊州和其他地方的项目也在进行中。

As more districts seek to address the housing crisis in their communities — an issue EdSurge explored in depth in a recent story — we wanted to look at the school district in Daly City that, at least for now, has solved its housing woes.

随着越来越多的地区寻求解决其社区的住房危机——EdSurge在最近的一篇报道中深入探讨了这一问题——我们想看看戴利市的学区，至少目前已经解决了住房问题。

Drawing Up Plans

制定计划

Before its employee housing program launched in 2022, JUHSD was losing between 20 and 25 percent of its staff every year.

在2022年启动员工住房计划之前，JUHSD每年都会失去20%至25%的员工。

“We kept hearing, ‘It’s not because we don’t want to work here. It’s because we can’t live here,’” says Austin Worden, director of communication and staff housing for the district.

“我们一直听到，‘这不是因为我们不想在这里工作。而是因为我们不能住在这里，’”该地区的沟通和员工住房主管Austin Worden说。

Housing in the Bay Area is notoriously pricey, notes Worden, “but in recent years, the spike is just unreal — just through the roof,” he says. The average rent for apartments in Daly City in 2023 ranges between $2,344 and $3,692 a month, according to Rent.com. “What we’re giving in salary raises doesn’t even compete,” Worden adds.

沃登指出，湾区的住房价格是出了名的昂贵，“但近年来，房价飙升是不真实的——只是飙升到了顶点，”他说。根据rent.com的数据，2023年戴利市公寓的平均租金在每月2344美元至3692美元之间。沃登补充道：“我们在加薪方面的付出甚至没有竞争力。”。

JUHSD is the lowest-funded high school district in San Mateo County, California, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. Teacher salaries in Jefferson Union range from around $62,000 to $107,000 a year, compared to nearby San Mateo Union High School District, where teachers can earn between $79,000 and $148,000 a year.

JUHSD是加利福尼亚州圣马特奥县资金最低的高中区，也是美国生活成本最高的地方之一。杰斐逊联盟的教师年薪从62000美元到107000美元不等，而附近的圣马特奥联盟高中区的教师年薪在79000美元到148000美元之间。

School districts sometimes raise money by selling bonds, but Jefferson Union leaders knew they wouldn’t be able to use bond funds to increase staff salaries. What they could do with a bond was build. The district had plenty of land and property ripe for development. If housing was the main driver of high turnover rates and district leaders couldn’t adjust salaries in line with housing costs, they thought, why not just build staff housing?

学区有时通过出售债券来筹集资金，但杰斐逊联盟的领导人知道他们无法使用债券资金来提高员工工资。他们所能做的就是建立联系。该地区有大量可供开发的土地和房地产。如果住房是高流动率的主要驱动因素，而地区领导人无法根据住房成本调整工资，他们想，为什么不建造员工住房呢？

A $33 million voter-approved bond passed in June 2018. The remainder of the $75.5 million housing project was financed through a Certificate of Participation (COP).

2018年6月，一项3300万美元的选民批准债券获得通过。7550万美元住房项目的其余资金通过参与证书（COP）提供。

The goal, says Worden, was for about a quarter of the district’s 530 staff members to live in the eventual apartment complex, and to price rent for the units about 50 percent below market rates.

沃登说，目标是让该地区530名工作人员中约四分之一的人住在最终的公寓楼里，并将这些单元的租金比市场价格低50%左右。

In practice, the rental units are around 60 percent of market rates — between $1,350 and $1,580 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in the district-owned building, compared to about $2,400 a month elsewhere, Worden says — so a considerable discount.

沃登说，实际上，出租单元的租金约为市场价格的60%——该地区拥有的一居室公寓每月1350美元至1580美元，而其他地方每月约2400美元——因此这是一个相当大的折扣。

By May 2022, staff were moving into the building, which has a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units and includes modern appliances and amenities such as a fitness center, common rooms with workspaces, playgrounds, community centers and parking.

到2022年5月，工作人员搬进了这座大楼，它有一居室、两居室和三居室，包括现代化的电器和设施，如健身中心、带工作空间的公共休息室、游乐场、社区中心和停车场。