Should Teacher Housing Be Lauded or Loathed? Policy and Politics in District-Led Workforce Housing Initiatives

• In Event: Pushing the Boundaries of Education Policy: The Political Economy of Racialized Punishment, Privatization, and Resistance

Abstract

“Teacher housing initiatives” (THIs) are a recent innovation in the recruitment and retention of new teachers, led by district leaders concerned about the high cost of housing in cities where teachers teach (or desire to teach). As it stands, lack of affordable housing has presented a host of challenges not only for students and families who face displacement (Holme, 2022), particularly in gentrifying cities, but also for teachers and essential workers who are increasingly priced-out of housing markets in central cities (Fay, 2017; Loewus, 2017; NCTQ, 2017). Most THIs are created by converting district-owned property (e.g., closed schools or empty buildings) into multi-family residential units and leasing them at below market rates. Other THIs involve partnering with developers to build new units on district-owned land and making them available as workforce housing (see Davis, 2017).
While THIs are ostensibly designed to reduce costs and to stabilize teacher workforces, researchers have yet to examine why housing is increasingly unaffordable for teachers despite their status as college-educated professionals, and the characteristics of THIs themselves, including lease agreements, the politics of funding and revenue, and community participation. The duality of district leaders, moreover, as employers and managers of tenant housing (i.e., “landlords”) raises important concerns about teacher autonomy, power, and control. The racial politics of teacher housing is also worth examining, as struggles for housing are acutely racialized wherein teachers of color may have less access to inherited wealth for down payment on a home compared to white colleagues. THIs, therefore, may target or have heightened appeal for new teachers of color. Lastly, THIs are constructed in the context of neoliberal education reform and austerity policies that have diminished worker protection and salary, social spending, and regulation of markets, facilitating new forms of privatization and deprofessionalization.
As such, this paper draws on critical policy analysis (CPA) and the political economy of place to examine teacher housing initiatives in two cities (Newark and Denver; Diem et al., 2014; Logan and Molotch, 2007). CPA compels us to question all aspects of the policymaking process, including the historical, sociopolitical, and geographic contexts in which policies are created (Diem et al. 2014). A political economy of place invites us to interrogate the ways in which metropolitan environments are shaped by government actors and their negotiation with micro and macroeconomic forces (Logan & Molotch, 2017). In doing so, the paper outlines the structure and characteristics of the THIs, followed by historical and sociopolitical conditions that circumscribe the school-housing nexus in each city. We use interviews with district leaders, developers, teachers (including tenants in THIs), and housing activists. Ultimately, we move beyond easy comparisons of THIs and situate them in the history of the “educationalization of social policies” (Kantor and Lowe, 2006). We extend this phenomenon to current interventions on the part of education leaders who operate in the wake of enduring inequities, weak enforcement of fair housing policies, and urban renewal programs that left working-class families and essential workers displaced.

Authors

• Terrenda Corisa White, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author

• Jackquelin Bristol, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author