Embedded Files
Some Recap
Some Recap
Our Argument:
Our Argument:
Lack of access to affordable housing for teachers is wrong as it undermines their ability to live stable and comfortable lives.
The Problem:
The Problem:
There are no guarantees that the people who teach our children can afford to live anywhere near them. The problem lies in the growing housing crisis in California and its impact on teachers—essential members of our communities who are being pushed out by rising rents and unlivable costs. While resources exist to highlight the state's housing issues, there is no assurance that policymakers or the public truly grasp the toll it takes on educators' lives. Teachers may appear to earn a livable wage, but in places like San Francisco, even those salaries fall short, leaving many rent-burdened or commuting hours just to reach their classrooms. This quiet erosion of their stability is often ignored, and that ignorance endangers not only the teachers themselves, but the very foundation of our education system. Something must be done.
Ethical Mandate:
Ethical Mandate:
The ethical premises of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and utilitarian philosophy prove that affordable teacher housing is ethically good because it improves teachers' lives, strengthens communities, and benefits students, making it a policy that should be supported.
Theological Mandate:
Theological Mandate:
Access to affordable housing is essential to human dignity, yet many teachers in California struggle to secure it. This crisis undermines their well-being and worth, contradicting the Catholic vision found in Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching, which upholds the right to dignified living conditions for all, especially those who serve the common good.
Idea board 1
Root Cause Analysis
Root Cause Analysis
At the end of our research, Justin and Adam concluded that the High cost and complexity of developing affordable housing in the Bay Area makes it financially unviable to develop affordable housing. But how did we come to that conclusion? While conducting an expansive research study on what the root cause of unaffordable housing for teaching is, we had to figure out why this issue has begun in the first place. Justin and Adam constructed 5 reasons or "whys" for the struggle of affording housing for teachers. The first "why" includes the difference in money between the housing costs and the teacher's salary. These housing costs are too high relative to the average teacher salary therefore its extremely difficult for a teacher to afford a house in addition to other necessities. The high demand for affordable housing in the area is another "why". In California, teachers are not the only occupation that receive low pay. This creates a conflict in supply and demand because there is a high demand for this housing but the state can only supply so little of it which creates hardship for a large chunk of not just teachers but other occupations that make similar pay. Even if the state wants to build housing, factors such as zoning laws and high construction costs stand in the way. Zoning laws are regulations made by a city or the state which determine how much land can be used which can limit the amount of housing built within a certain area. The high construction costs speak for themselves-a combination of both these things make it unreasonably hard to create affordable housing in the state.
Our Top 5 Ideas
School funding comes into play as well because schools do not receive enough for teachers to get a higher pay which is what Mr.Carey spoke on in our interview with him. When asked about the root cause of this issue, Mr.Carey highlighted how he is "clearly not being paid enough" which illustrates a clear issue that needs to be changed as soon as possible. Finally, political challenges and the complexity of overhauling a tax and funding system that has existed for a long time, prevents California’s education system from adjusting to regional cost differences. Changing California's tax and school funding system is easier said than done. This is because this is usually tied up in politics and politicians refuse to make a difference so it makes it difficult for the school districts to receive the extra money that is needed to support their faculty.
Idea board 2
Design thinking Process
Design thinking Process
After we pinpointed a root cause, we set out to brainstorm ideas to either solve or alleviate the issue. As we identified, the main factor in teachers' inability to afford housing is that it is financially unviable to develop affordable housing in the bay area. Therefore, many of our solutions focused on alleviating the financial pressure on individual school districts to develop affordable housing for their employees. For example, our top ideas from our first session of brainstorming included increasing funding for the Department of Education, providing a housing tax credit for teachers, helping School Districts develop housing themselves, and persuading rich alumni donors to pay for development costs. With these ideas in hand, we conducted a second brainstorming session, where we tried to identify more actionable solutions stemming from the original top four ideas. Throughout the process, we had to constantly balance the feasibility of solutions with their theoretical impact. For example, an idea like "Lower Housing Costs in California" would have an incredible impact, but is an immense issue that thousands of incredibly smart individuals are still struggling to solve. After a few sessions of brainstorming and a final discussion, we eventually identified our favorite solution.
Our Solution
Our Solution
The concept Justin and Adam believed best resolved our issue the strongest was to consider the reasons housing costs so much. The price of housing, especially in the state of California, is due to the development of housing and the zoning laws in California. These create large barriers in which building new housing can be stalled due to these zoning laws and restricts the development of more larger housing structures. Our proposed solution was to have school districts build their own housing on land that is for faculty and staff that is funded by the schools and other donors. Traditionally, developing affordable housing has been the domain of private developers, city planning departments, and public housing authorities, but we believe that in this circumstance, School Districts themselves are uniquely poisitioned to develop teacher housing themselves. First of all, School districts are uniquely incentivized to create a desirable environment to work in, in order to attract new teachers, administrators, and othetr faculty. Considering, California's struggles with attracting and retaining teachers in recent years, School Districts not only have immense incentive to develop affordable housing, as compared to a private developer who would likely make more money developing office space. Secondly, as found in the 2022 Education Workforce Housing in California Report, public school districts own more than 75,000 acres of potentially developable land, circumventing one of the major barriers to affordable housing.
Our final prototype
Above, you can see our prototypes which are different kinds of housing that school districts can build. These houses would be district owned, reserving the housing for teachers who cannot afford the high housing costs in California.
That being said, navigating California's permitting and zoning laws, are a second obstacle that make developing affordable housing difficult and expensive. While there has been some legislation passed to expedite this process for schools, it still remains. We propose that School Districts partner with traditional affordable housing entities, such as Habitat for Humanity, as well as persuading alumni donors to help pay for housing structures, perhaps by naming the buildings after them. An example of this is Ken and Anne Stinson who donated a large sum of money to Serra High School to help remodel the library. In a way to thank the Stinsons, Serra decided to name the library after them, combining the help of alumni Donors and the expertise of traditional housing agencies, with School Districts' land and legal status, we can bypass all of the major obstacles to developing affordable housing.
Sage Park Apartments - Los Angelos Unified School District
Casa Del Maestro - Santa Clara Unified School District
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
Below, there is a link of a handbook created by the University of California Los Angeles that is filled with relevant information about teacher housing. A way you can help out is to email your school representative suggesting that they should look into developing teacher housing and attach the link below which can help them consider implementing similar housing to the buildings you see above.
Please fill this out before you close out on the website
Works Cited
"Act Now." Freepik,2025, data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/.Accessed 12 May. 2025.
Adam Kanzaki.Disruptive action photos. April,28,2025
“California’s Teacher Education Deserts: An Overlooked & Growing Equity Challenge - UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools.” UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools - UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools, 14 Feb. 2024, transformschools.ucla.edu/research/californias-teacher-education-deserts/. Accessed 6 May 2025.
Center for Cities + Schools, cityLAB, and Terner Center for Housing Innovation. (2022).
Education Workforce Housing in California: Developing the 21st Century Public School Campus. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California.
https://www.sagepark-apartments.com. Sage Park Apartments, resource.rentcafe.com/image/upload/q_auto,f_auto,c_limit,w_1920,dpr_2/s3/2/137415/photekt_sagepark_8749.jpg. Accessed 6 May 2025.
Ktgy.com, 2025, ktgy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Casa-Del-Maestro-2.jpg. Accessed 6 May 2025.
“Radware Captcha Page.” Ca.gov, 2025, www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr25/yr25rel12.asp#:~:text=SB%20502%20would%20allow%20more,affordable%20housing%20for%20school%20employees. Accessed 6 May 2025.
Page updated
Report abuse