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Posted on Mon, June.18 2007

Rental-assistance program for San Jose teachers gets high marks

San Jose school districts will soon have a new marketing tool to help in their perennial struggle to entice teachers to come and stay in our pricey region two months-plus of free rent.

Teach Here, Rent Here, the tentative name for the rental-assistance program, will help dozens of teachers, including possibly some late-summer candidates who may be on the fence about moving to San Jose . By smartly targeting rents for new teachers (math and science teachers get first dibs), it starts to address a widening affordability gap. Many young teachers make slightly too much to qualify for subsidized rental housing, but they make too little to take advantage of the city's much-heralded teacher home-buyer assistance program. That leaves them stuck in between, with too big a piece of their paycheck going to high rent.

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group is considering donating $100,000. The mayor's office and the Silicon Valley Education Foundation have agreed to kick in $100,000 each. (The foundation hopes to double that; we encourage other companies to make a donation.) The combination would be enough to help 54 teachers, who would be eligible for a grant of the first and second month's rent, a security deposit or any combination up to $5,000. A teacher would have to teach in a public school in San Jose and earn no more than $59,400. Any teacher who quits teaching within three years must repay a portion of the grant.

The program is designed to help teachers like Heather Mikos, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois who just finished her first year teaching third grade at Shirakawa School in the Franklin-McKinley School District . This year, she's rooming with two other first-year teachers in a three-bedroom apartment off Capitol Expressway. Her share of the rent is $725. With the average rent in San Jose now about $1,289 for a one-bedroom apartment, she couldn't afford her own place.

There are about 9,000 teachers in San Jose . Over the past decade, the city's teacher home-ownership program, which provides up to $65,000 in second mortgage assistance, has helped 587 of them get their own place - 80 percent of them condominiums. But with home prices far outpacing increases in teacher pay, it's getting harder for them to take advantage of the program. The median sales price of a condominium last month in Santa Clara County was $537,000, up 35 percent from three years ago. The average starting pay for a teacher in San Jose is about $45,000. Without help from families, it would be difficult for a single teacher earning less than $70,000 to afford even an entry-level condominium.

The San Jose Redevelopment Agency deserves credit for encouraging construction of subsidized housing, such as Lenzen Square , across from San Jose Unified's central office, where a dozen teachers live. But the maximum qualifying income of $44,580 for a single person now excludes many beginning teachers.

The state doesn't distinguish high-cost areas when parceling out education dollars. Until it does, San Jose 's 19 districts will struggle to compete for the best young teachers. The rental-assistance program certainly should help.

Source: www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_5984129 )