Too small!

This is but one 'small' contribution to the lower-cost-for-teachers rental housing being put in for MVWSD educators (and `less-well'-compensated staff). Please remember the Mountain View complex that is build on Shoreline not that far from Theuerkauf. Over 100 of these units will be available for school employees. UNFORTUNATELY no Occupancy Permit can be issued until the developer finishes a late-starting parking structure for Market Rate (Fate) Housing.

Mountain View has a quota to build about 1900 units of subsidized housing that will be affordable to households making 80% to 120% of the area median income. That amounts to income levels of $75K to $115K. It seems like that this housing too would be available to a lot of teachers, especially the ones just starting out. There are only about 200 teachers working for MVWSD, and their numbers could drop still further. The number of students has plunged from a high of 5132 in 2017-2018 to 4522 this past year.

This drop in the number of students won't hurt MVWSD's funding as it gets too much money in local property taxes to qualify for funding based on adding or subtracting students. It's interesting that this big enrollment drop results in increasing funding per student. The parcel tax adopted in 2016 has been needed less and less ever since it started being collected. Over $200 million in bond funding for new school facilities was approved in 2020 and the enrollment has continued to decline resulting in empty classrooms even since then. Fewer classrooms used means fewer teachers employed.

Note that a key reason why this project is moving forward is because Facebook/Meta is contributing $25 million. Without that $$$, this project would not be happening.

The reason we lack affordable housing is not ZONING, as some repeatedly claim. The problem is FUNDING.

Is it great that this project is happening? Yes. But let's at least be honest about the situation. If we want more projects like this, if we want more AFFORDABLE housing for low-income and average workers, we need policies that generate more FUNDING for it.

The alternative is GENTRIFICATION, which is what our shiny new housing element supports today. Increasing concentrations of "future residents" who all happen to primarily be high wage earners. When ALMOST ALL units in housing project after housing project are expensive, market rate units, ALMOST ALL of the people who move into those units will be high wage earners.