A San Francisco school district is trying a new approach for teachers struggling with soaring rent prices.
In an innovative attempt to help its roughly 500 employed educators find affordable housing, the Milpitas Unified School District has emailed parents asking if they can rent rooms in their homes.
“If you have a room for rent at your home and would like to share the housing opportunity with our Milpitas Unified School District educators, please fill out this Google form,” the email read, according to ABC News.
Teachers in the district earn between $67,163 and $111,410, a salary bracket that does not meet the pre-requirement of 40 times the average monthly rental rate of $3,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Daily Mail reported.
Superintendent Cheryl Jordan told the outlet that her district decided to give the desperate method a try after losing potential employees once they became familiarized with the cost of living in the tech area.
“We’ve lost out on some employees that we tried to recruit because once they see how much it costs to live here, they determine that it’s just not possible,” Ms Jordan told the Mail.
Resident Subbu Srinivasan told ABC that the initiative seemed like a good idea to help alleviate the rent burden for teachers.
“I think housing is the biggest problem facing the Bay Area in general and California as a whole and it’s a problem,” Mr Srinivasan said.
Meanwhile, fellow resident Shawn Shergill said that the problem stemmed from having big companies such as Google, Tesla, Facebook employing high-paid staff, which directly affected people who earn considerably less.
Ms Jordan told the Washington Post that the method was well received by parents and that the parent was already employing other resources to help teachers such as Landed, a platform that helps professionals buy homes.
“With 53 responses to our call for Rooms for Rent for [district staff] in such a short time, this is evidence that our entire [team], which includes our teachers and classified support staff, is valued by our Milpitas community members, parents and caregivers,” Ms Jordan wrote to the Post.
