St. Mary's School teacher Steffanie Lynott looks out her bedroom window at her backyard garden.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Poor Teacher
Educators are being squeezed out of the local housing market by the high cost of living
By Rebecca Ray
Photographs by Kathy De La Torre
Steffanie Lynott didn't plant anything in her garden this spring. Instead, she packed boxes. The second-grade teacher at St. Mary's School in Los Gatos had to move out of the Los Gatos home she was renting because it was sold to cover estate taxes. The only reason Lynott could afford the monthly rent on her teacher's salary was that the home was owned by her aunt, Jane Summers, who kept the rent low.
After Summers passed away--which ultimately forced the sale of the property--Lynott found herself in a dilemma facing many local educators: the cost of living in Los Gatos and Saratoga is forcing many of them to either live together, commute from other communities, or leave to find employment in more affordable areas.
Lynott--who makes between $40,000 and $50,000 a year--rented the 930-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bathroom house from Summers at below-market value during the entire 23 years Lynott lived there. The low rent allowed Lynott to continue teaching at St. Mary's. Summers rented out the house for $850 a month until the last couple of years, when she rented it out at $1,500 a month to cover her medical expenses. The house could have easily gone for at least $2,500 a month, Lynott said.
Catholic school teachers' salaries are several notches below those of public school teachers. Elementary school teachers' salaries in the Diocese of San Jose range from $30,000 to $53,400, while public school teachers make between $35,000 and $87,000 annually, according to local districts.
Real estate broker Kenn Callahan estimates that rentals in Los Gatos and Saratoga average between $2,500 and $3,500 a month. Owning a home is even tougher. Recent sales indicate that housing prices in Los Gatos range from about $549,000 to $17 million. Home prices in Saratoga range from about $699,000 to $18 million, according to Callahan. As a result, some teachers rent places together, or with roommates, while others leave the Los Gatos and Saratoga area and choose to teach at schools outside the area so that they can own homes.
"As educators, we are there to establish a child's foundation for his or her future, and as much as you want to do this humanitarian act, it won't pay the bills," Lynott said.
Some fear that with such a high turnover rate at local schools, the high quality of education in local districts will decline. Slightly fewer teachers applied for positions in the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District over the past four years, said district Superintendent Cynthia Ranii. The housing prices may drive away new local teachers before they become experienced, said Matt Weber, a fourth-grade teacher at Argonaut Elementary School in Saratoga. And for students, learning new names and faces every year can be demoralizing and repetitive if allowed to go on for too long, said Brian Safine, a seventh-grade teacher at Redwood Middle School in Saratoga who mentors new teachers.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Matt Weber, a fourth-grade teacher at Argonaut Elementary School, says his students tell him he needs to find a rich wife so he can buy a house in Saratoga.
The Teacher Housing Initiative is a Saratoga committee that was organized in October, to help teachers at Saratoga High School and the Saratoga Union School District find affordable housing. The committee conducted a survey in late October that indicates 25 percent of the teachers at the schools are new hires for the 2000-2001 school year. Two-thirds of the 124 teachers,who returned the survey, said that housing challenges might drive them away from working in Saratoga.
According to Safine, there were 14 new teachers at Redwood in October, and only two of those teachers replaced retirees. At least five of them left for more secure financial gains, Safine said.
Joshua Marks, a fifth-grade teacher at Foothill Elementary School in Saratoga, added that there were nine new teachers at Foothill in October. He said some of them took over positions of young teachers who had to move, and that a large percentage of the teacher work force in Saratoga is expected to retire soon.
Teacher Pay: Approximate starting salaries of local educators.
Although Lynott said she planned on teaching at St. Mary's, she was concerned about finding a local rental where she didn't have to use her whole paycheck for rent, leaving her with only a few hundred dollars to live on. Even when she lived in Summers' house, she kept a simple lifestyle. She rarely traveled, and gardening was her most expensive hobby. It was her aunt Jane's generosity, plus working during summers, that allowed her to live so comfortably, she said.
Lynott, whose family has lived in Los Gatos for 55 years, said she had considered the possibility of moving out of the area and commuting to St. Mary's. But, she said, "We're grounded in this town. That's what makes it so hard." Lynott and her seven siblings attended St. Mary's and Los Gatos High School. One niece and three nephews also attended St. Mary's, where her great-nephew may start next year.
English teacher Paris De Soto, who has taught at Los Gatos High School for the past three years, has managed an apartment complex in downtown Los Gatos for the past two years, so she can afford to live at the complex. De Soto pays just under $1,000 each month for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment that she would ordinarily rent for $1,500. During her first year teaching, she lived with her parents.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Steffanie Lynott, a second-grade teacher at St. Mary's School in Los Gatos, sorts through her belongings as she prepares to move out of the home she rented for 23 years.
De Soto said she enjoyed living within a mile of the high school--so close that she didn't get to finish listening to one song on the radio when she commuted--and being part of the community. She said she thought it was fun running into students outside of class, and that she liked to run and bike on the creek trail. But, she said, as much as she likes teaching at Los Gatos High School, she might have to move away in a few years, if she marries and decides to have a family.
Weber, 26, who has taught at Argonaut for the past three years, said he feels the same way. So far, he says, housing has not been a problem for him--he lives with three roommates in a four-bedroom, 1 1/2-bathroom house in Saratoga. The four of them pay a total of $2,600 a month. But he fears that housing will become a problem in the future. If he wants to start a family, he said, he could rent a place for a while, but he'd eventually want to own his own home. If he had to move too far away from Argonaut to buy a house, he would just teach in the area to which he moved, and if he did own a home in the area, it would probably be because he changed careers, he said.
Because of housing costs in Santa Clara County, school districts countywide have had trouble recruiting teachers from other states. Cheryl Pederman, human resource director for San Jose Unified School District, said that teachers from surrounding states, such as Arizona, Oregon and Washington are aware of the cost of living in the county and won't take jobs here unless they can share housing and split the rent. Because of this, the district has had to focus on recruiting teachers from New York, where the cost of living is also high. Pederman said she and four managers in the district spend January through late August traveling to places as far away as the East Coast and Canada to recruit teachers, and that the district hires close to 200 teachers each year.
The Los Gatos Union, Saratoga Union and Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School Districts also have trouble recruiting teachers from other states. Suzanne Sanders, assistant superintendent of the Los Gatos Union School District, said that the elementary school district focused on hiring teachers from California. She said that teachers from other states who applied for jobs here lost interest once they found how expensive it was to live in the area.
Margie Singleton, human resources director for the Saratoga Union School District, added that when teachers from other states accepted jobs with the Saratoga Union School District, it was usually because they had friends or family here. Officials from the three districts--each smaller than San Jose Unified that has 3,000 employees--said personnel from their districts didn't travel to other states to recruit teachers. Their districts didn't have the money.
But, as Sanders and Ranii pointed out, the districts didn't need to travel to other states, since their excellent reputations attracted enough applicants.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Los Gatos High School teacher Paris De Soto teaches her composition and literature class. De Soto is able to afford the rent at an apartment less than a mile from the school, because she gets a discount for managing the complex.
To address low teacher salaries, the Diocese of San Jose has been working to increase its teacher salaries and make them more on par with those in public schools, Lynott said. The teacher housing initiative committee members are helping teachers in Saratoga find affordable housing by listing available rentals that only teachers can access on the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District website.
The committee is organizing a free seminar, at which a mortgage broker will give teachers information on buying homes; putting together a packet on purchasing and renting homes. They are asking anyone who can, or who knows someone who can, rent property at a below-market rate to contact them. They are also asking others to share information on rental and homeowner assistance programs.
The committee took its cause to the Saratoga City Council at the council meeting on March 27. Committee members recommended to council members that they ease rental restrictions, require developers to include affordable units in future developments and dedicate some of the city's projected $6.8 million budget surplus to provide low-interest-rate loans or mortgage assistance programs for teachers.
Unlike the city of San Jose, the city of Saratoga does not participate in a teacher housing program. The San Jose Department of Housing has a teacher homebuyer loan program, which gives full-time K-12 public school teachers who teach in San Jose or at schools where most of the students are San Jose residents, deferred payment loan assistance up to $40,000. A private lender can finance the rest of the purchase price.
San Jose also participates in the Santa Clara County Teacher Mortgage Credit Certificate program, which provides a federal income tax credit of up to 20 percent of the mortgage interest paid each year. The remaining 80 percent is deducted from the teacher's gross income tax.
While the city of Saratoga is involved in some affordable housing projects, the city's small budget precludes it from having any comprehensive project of its own. And the fact that other groups, in addition to the committee, are vying for portions of the city's budget surplus, makes it even more difficult for the committee to receive surplus money.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Matt Weber hangs out with one of his three roommates after work in their living room.
The Teacher Housing Initiative is exploring every option, except fundraising, partly due to the state of the economy, said committee Co-chairwoman Ching-Li Chang.
The committee isn't the only group that's trying to help teachers find affordable housing. Last fall, the Rotary Club of Los Gatos formed a teacher housing subcommittee, which mailed some 350 letters to Los Gatans with secondary units, advising them of the need for teacher housing.
Single-family housing assistance programs for teachers in California include the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group Housing Trust of Santa Clara County, which provides low-interest down payments/closing cost loans and gap financing for affordable rental housing projects; and the California State Teachers Retirement System Home Loan Program, where a member either pays 5 percent down or zero percent down with combined first and second mortgages financing the entire purchase price of the home.
Also available are the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Teacher Next Door Program, where HUD-owned, single-family homes are available to teachers at a 50 percent discount of the last listed price, and a teacher can make a down payment of $100 if he or she chooses a Federal Housing Agency-insured mortgage; and the California Treasurer's Office Teacher Mortgage Program, where, through the Bank of America Teacher Flex Program, teachers can put up $500 in cash for a down payment, and the balance comes from sources such as grants, nonprofits and family members.
Teachers can also log onto www.homesforteachers.com for information about homeownership assistance programs for teachers. They can call 916.324.8088 for information on programs sponsored by the California Housing Finance Agency, which seeks to finance below-market-rate loans to create safe, affordable rental housing and help first-time homebuyers own homes.
"When you've lived here as long as we have and seen such drastic changes in the economy, it's mind boggling," Lynott said. "The place you used to call home doesn't feel like home anymore."
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