If you were at the meeting, you heard that the housing is targeted for all employees - not just teachers. Schools also need custodians, secretaries and instructional assistants to be successful and those people are paid significantly less than teachers.

I couldn't disagree more with this idea! Teachers do a very important job and are a valuable part of our communities. However, that being said, I am growing very concerned that public funds are being used to grant benefits for the exclusive use of public employees at the expense of the taxpayers whom they are supposed to be serving and working for.

Funds for and housing for lower income people should be based solely on income, not political affiliation. I might have missed it in the article, but I see nothing about means testing the teachers or other employees of the school system. Does this mean that teachers earning over $100,000/yr would be eligible? Would this be counted against the low income housing quota/targets even if the employees being granted the housing are not low income?

Once we start down the road of awarding benefits based on political or public sector affiliation, I see only BAD THINGS happening after that.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

I couldn't disagree more with this idea! Teachers do a very important job and are a valuable part of our communities. However, that being said, I am growing very concerned that public funds are being used to grant benefits for the exclusive use of public employees at the expense of the taxpayers whom they are supposed to be serving and working for.

Funds for and housing for lower income people should be based solely on income, not political affiliation. I might have missed it in the article, but I see nothing about means testing the teachers or other employees of the school system. Does this mean that teachers earning over $100,000/yr would be eligible? Would this be counted against the low income housing quota/targets even if the employees being granted the housing are not low income?

Once we start down the road of awarding benefits based on political or public sector affiliation, I see only BAD THINGS happening after that.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

The idea of using already owned school land to develop housing for our very important teachers and school staff is an idea I fully support. Using land already owned by the district would decrease the cost for housing development substantially. Keeping good talent local is key to having good talent in our public schools.

How about just paying teachers a comfortable living wage that is commiserate with the benefit they bring to our community and society? Seems like if we did that, they would all be making enough money to afford decent housing around here.

Jim is correct! That is my philosophy and look how well it worked during my term.

If the District builds this affordable housing for teachers and staff, those who get in on the deal would be getting a defacto pay raise. Unless the unions accept this as such, they will soon be back asking for more across the board increases. Perhaps those lucky few who get into the program would need to defer future pay raises until wage parody with their market rate colleagues is achieved. Remember, this will all be done with public money, so the option is get paid more and find your own place to live,or live in District housing for a reduced pay scale.

This is the most sensible target of affordable housing that I can imagine. Teachers and critical city employees should be first on the list.

In other news, union employees asked for more money for continuing to do a bad job.

Take the enormous amount of money needed to develop and manage this housing and use it to pay the teachers a living wage. The school district should not be in the property management business.

Maybe this is a good idea. But we should all be aware that it is a temporary solution that only helps a small part of Mountain View inhabitants. It won't even help all teachers.

The real solution, that will help everyone, is to build a lot more housing. People are ready and able to do that, if we only let them.

A solution to all of the housing supply woes is to remove all zoning rules and regulations. Let the market truly be free. If I want to put an 8-plex in the wealthy Waverly Park neighborhood next to the so-called "free market economist" ex-council member's house, who would want to stop me?

Oh, that's right. Mr. Free Market would...

"The high cost of housing, coupled with a salary schedule that is well below the area median income, was frequently cited" and both problems need to be addressed.

Building below-market housing will only work if enough low-cost housing is built for everyone who wants to live in Mountain View. When that happens the two-million-dollar-and-up single family houses and $8000/mo "luxury" apartments will no longer cost that much--and the population of Mountain View will be greater than 150,000, with the extra 75,000 people living in 10- to 20-story apartment complexes. And, when that happens there will be more VTA buses than single-driver cars on the roads.

Hiring teachers and other school staff will only become easy when the wages offered are competitive with tech wages.

Unfortunately, all that will never happen. We'll be lucky if the city gets enough housing to house 100.000 people, and school districts raise minimum wage jobs to $15/hour and entry level teachers get $60,000/year.

As noted above most teachers and public safety workers will not qualify. Even if they did these units will not work for those wanting a few children . Eventually a teachers income will rise and they will stil retain the huge subsidy. I would much rather see these units go to long time MV seniors allowing them to either downsize and or remain in MV

The solution here is for teachers to flee the district and let the district feel the pain of a teacher shortage. Only then will teacher salaries rise enough to cover cost of living in the area. If the district subsidizes teacher housing then teacher salaries will remain low.

As the author notes, this idea has been tried elsewhere:
Web Link

How well has it worked out, in the long term?

This is a terrible idea and a waste of the MVWSD's "war chest."

1) It effectively does nothing to address the needs of those teachers living outside of MV who are unable (for family or other reasons) to move into MV.

2) It would be logistically difficult to implement. For example, how would the teachers/staff working in the school district get selected to live in subsidized housing (tenure, salary, position?). Aassuming not everyone who opted to live in subsidized housing would get it, how would one equitably determine how long a teacher could live in subsidized housing before being forced to move out? If teachers once in would never be forced out, how would new teachers get to partake in this effective lottery?

3) It keeps money in the hands of the school district which can at its leisure decide to decrease subsidies, raise the bar for qualifying for subsidized housing, or phase out the program altogether. At the end of the day, it's the teachers paying off the mortgage and reaping none of the equity.

Instead of this horrible idea, teacher salaries should raise commensurately and uniformly so that all teachers working in the district stand to benefit, instead of selecting the few lucky individuals to reap this subsidized windfall lottery. It's the only way to ensure accountability with the school's administration and to ensure that all parties benefit equally.

Let's not waste our money housing short-timers verging on obsolescence -- let's put our money on the future, for the sake of our children.

With the advent of viable/successful/low-cost Artificial Intelligences (Watson, Deep Mind, AlphaGo, Siri, Uber, etc) we will NOT be employing humans in the role of "classroom teachers" much longer. Seems to me (at least for elementary and high school levels) these positions will be eliminated by technology within the next 20 years -- like elevator operators and (soon) taxi drivers.

Listen and understand: when AI units reign over our classrooms -- each one with the knowledge of 100 Kahn Academy's in their positronic brains -- they will not need housing: they absolutely will not stop, ever, until our children are fully educated.

Ah, I see! If we cannot nail down the entire Eduction Problem for the next 100 years, then we should do absolutely nothing to keep qualfied teachers employed in our school district!

Grow up people. Every single excellent teacher that stays employed here affects the potential success (or failure) of our future generation. A very tiny investment for a very large return. The only arguments against this are from people who refuse to pay for any community projects anyway. Ignore them!

Uh, not true. I frequently give my time and money to projects and programs that benefit the community as do many others that are against this program. The problem is that many people are tires of being treated like piggy banks by their Government that they can raid at will. If you want to invest YOUR money, no one will stop you. But you don't have the right to tell us how to invest ours. And with the thousands of "tiny" investments we are being asked to pay for, it is adding up to real money!

Lastly, who said anything about nailing down education for the next 100 years? I'd be happy to see something that deals with the next year or two. The US ranks 5th in Education spending, yet ranks in the mid 20's for math, reading and science.

Instead of attacking the messengers, perhaps it would be better to redirect all that energy into fixing the problem. It isn't more money that's needed, its a better more efficient system.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

Housing project for teachers is a very bad idea. It is too expensive, and a permanent liability to the school district. What happens if the teacher quit? Is it unfair to other teachers who don't get it? and so on.

The school district can issue rent vouchers instead. The vouchers are to be redeemable in any rental units to subsidize for portions of rent. It's like a coupon for housing.

If the teacher quit there will be no vouchers for him/her. But he/she can still live in the unit if that suits one's personal needs. Vouchers can be reduced or eliminated if housing market cools down, or school is short on financial resources.

There is no capital needed to invest in building anything, no permanent liability. The money saved can sponsor many more teachers.

A temporary solution would be putting the school buildings to good use as temporary housing! The cafeteria would provide meals, the auditoriums would provide sleeping and classrooms could be reserved for the teachers who teach in them.
That idea is how nursing or retirement homes already do for people who live in them.
As for replacing teachers with teaching machines, that is a distinct possibility that cannot be ruled out. China is already working on this project for the massive amounts of people with ethic differences. China has already started on an android hooked up to a computer that actually talks and has human facial expressions. Since EVERYONE can build a supercomputer these days, applying AI to create a " teaching machine " is not that far away.

I cannot imagine anything worse than colleagues living together in close proximity. There needs to be a separation of home and work life. I like my colleagues very much, but I also like leaving my work life at work. Just pay teachers more, and they can decide how to spend the money that would have been spent on teacher housing.

As many have pointed out, how do you tax a benefit that only some staff get? How do you ensure equality?

I don't have kids. I will never have kids. So why should I fund your salary to teach someone else's kids?

Having government owned housing to allow important members of the community the ability to live in it is a great solution. Handing out extra money to teachers is wasteful. They will likely not use that money to stay locally anyway. Anyone who suggests rent vouchers is a landlord shill.

@@MV Teacher, who is going to support your retirement? The kids of today are the workforce of tomorrow. Their productivity supports your well being when you retire.

Those who don't have kids should pay *more* tax, not less, because they will be living off other people's kids.