School Lands Housing: Building Workforce Housing on Campus

Year: 2019–2022

A report and companion handbook provide a comprehensive overview of the potential for land owned by school districts to be designed and developed into housing for teachers and other employees. In California schools, the housing crisis leads to worsening educational outcomes, high teacher turnover, and staffing shortages as employees struggle to live in the communities where they work – costs that are disproportionately borne by students in low-income schools. California school districts own nearly 151,500 acres of land, and more than half (61%) of the potentially developable properties are located where entry-level teachers face housing affordability challenges. This research inventories thousands of potential sites, shows a range of housing design strategies, and lays out a roadmap for school districts interested in exploring this transformative opportunity to enable more teachers and staff to live in the communities they serve. The report makes important recommendations for state policy reforms to encourage education workforce housing, and is accompanied by an illustrated Handbook that provides a how-to guide for school boards, administrators, and community members to advocate for and advance the development of education workforce housing on underutilized schools lands across California. The research lead directly to the authoring of AB2299 (Assemblymember Bloom, 2022) and its passage.

In our research documents the cityLAB team used design testing to explore development possibilities on some of California's school campuses. Our case study at Berkeley High takes the most common type of Education Workforce Housing development, building housing on a district owned parking lot, and pushes it further to include community amenities, a shared parking structure, housing, and open space. We believe that strong design can help California's schools address the intersecting issues of workforce recruitment, workforce retention, educational quality, and lack of housing affordability.