Educator workforce housing plan near San Quentin worth effort

The proposed Oak Hill project near San Quentin utilizes surplus state land to meet one of California’s most pressing needs — the lack of affordable workforce housing. One of just 10 such projects statewide, Oak Hill will consist of 230 apartments — half for educators and half for low-income households.

The project offers a rare opportunity to address the needs of some of our most essential workers: teachers and education support staff. Due to the high cost of housing, Marin County school districts find it difficult to recruit and retain employees, especially teachers. For example, beginning public high school teachers in San Rafael (Oak Hill will be in the San Rafael District) earn an average of $59,946 per year. They would need to use 47% of their annual income to rent a market rate studio apartment in Marin. Elementary school teachers with five years’ experience earn $66,655 per year, meaning they would have to put out 52% of their gross salaries for a one-bedroom apartment.

The high cost of housing not only makes it difficult to hire teachers, but also to retain education staff. A 2018 survey of Novato Unified School District employees found that:

• 63% have considered leaving their current job in the next five years due to housing costs.

• 57% of respondents who were planning to leave the district in less than three years cited the inability to find affordable housing as a key reason. 88% of those respondents said an offer of subsidized housing would influence their decision to stay with the district.

• The 2020 census shows that Marin is still the least diverse and most segregated county in the Bay Area. But the social profile of our kids is different. More than 46% of Marin students are Black, Indigenous or other people of color, yet 89% of their teachers identify as White. Affordable housing for teachers would help to attract and retain a more diverse education workforce, and this will help all our kids.

The developer for the education component of Oak Hill is local and uniquely qualified. Education Housing Partners Inc. is a nonprofit created by a Mill Valley based residential development firm, Thompson Dorfman Partners. EHP has been involved in more than 25 teacher housing projects with services ranging from project feasibility studies to turnkey developments. We are fortunate to have a homegrown nonprofit tackling an urgent local need.

The other component of Oak Hill will be built by Eden Housing, also a nonprofit. Eden is a builder with a long record of building and managing successful affordable housing projects.

This half of Oak Hill is aimed at very low- and low-income households. According to a 2020 report from the California Housing Partnership, 9,465 lower-income renter households in Marin County do not have access to an affordable home.

These households pay more than the recommended 30% of their income towards rent, and many pay more than 50%. That’s just existing residents and does not take into account the large number of low-wage workers who must commute from outside the county every day, because there is so little affordable housing in Marin. All of these folks are vital to our economy, and many are essential workers who help to keep us healthy and safe. Also, consider that building homes for lower-income households helps to ease traffic by providing these individuals housing closer to their place of work.

It is rare to have a chance to develop 230 units of affordable housing in Marin, and we must seize the opportunity. We are known as a progressive community, primarily because of the way our community votes. But, our housing policies have reflected differently on us — we are largely segregated, both racially and economically, and we need to change. We see little downside to this opportunity, and a good deal of upside. Please support Oak Hill.

Larry Kennings of Mill Valley is a member of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative.

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