How do teachers live in SF Bay area? (San Francisco, Sacramento: 2014, apartments)

[eudo]

So I was reading an article about how there were literally zero homes in San Francisco affordable on a SF teacher salary here:

http://www.redfin.com/research/repor...-teachers.html

And I was wondering, how do they do it? So I'm wondering if there are any K-12 teachers out there, would you be willing to explain how you do it?

Where do you teach? Where do you live? Does your spouse make much more than you? Do you have roommates? etc

[Ruth4Truth]

My guess is that those who live in SF are married, so there's an extra income in the household, and the single ones commute in to the city. I've known a couple of teachers who lived in the East Bay and worked in SF. People will get jobs wherever they can. They don't necessarily take jobs in their own community. Teachers also don't always stay put at the same school for their entire career. They move around. If they don't like the school in their town for any reason, if the job there doesn't work out, they'll look for an opportunity elsewhere, and if it turns up in SF, they'll commute to SF. There's no reason to assume that people teaching in a given town actually live there.

[shooting4life]

When did being able to own a home in the city where you work become the standard?

Sometimes you have to commute from one area to another area, this applies if you work in tech, a teacher, garbage man or work at McDonald's. Welcome to the real world.

[rca215]

My wife is a teacher, but I make significantly more than her. That is the case for many of her coworkers as well. In other cases, the teachers have lived here for quite a while and own a place or have rent control. Some of the newer teaches are single and live in lower cost parts of the city or region.

There's a decent number who commute in from outside of SF. But in many of those cases, the reason is less about cost and more about quality of schools. In other words, a lot of the SFUSD teachers don't want their kids to go to SFUSD.

It's all fairly sad.

[eudo]

Originally Posted by shooting4life

When did being able to own a home in the city where you work become the standard?

Sometimes you have to commute from one area to another area, this applies if you work in tech, a teacher, garbage man or work at McDonald's. Welcome to the real world.

Yes, it's true, but the entire SF Bay area is ultra expensive. The article I read indicated that the maximum affordable house on the median teacher's salary is $220k. I'm not sure you can find a SFR that low anywhere within 3 hours commute. That's why I'm wondering where they live/work.

The other really expensive area in the country is NYC, but from my experience, you can find something a little more reasonable outside the city. With SF, it seems the entire area is too expensive for a teacher's salary. It can't be that teachers are commuting from Sacramento...

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by eudo

Yes, it's true, but the entire SF Bay area is ultra expensive. The article I read indicated that the maximum affordable house on the median teacher's salary is $220k. I'm not sure you can find a SFR that low anywhere within 3 hours commute. That's why I'm wondering where they live/work.

The other really expensive area in the country is NYC, but from my experience, you can find something a little more reasonable outside the city. With SF, it seems the entire area is too expensive for a teacher's salary. It can't be that teachers are commuting from Sacramento...

It has been a few decades since purchasing a home on a single income was the norm. On a dual teacher salary income you can find houses and condos throughout the Bay Area within a reasonable commute. It would be even easier to rent instead of own.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by eudo

Yes, it's true, but the entire SF Bay area is ultra expensive. The article I read indicated that the maximum affordable house on the median teacher's salary is $220k. I'm not sure you can find a SFR that low anywhere within 3 hours commute. That's why I'm wondering where they live/work.

The other really expensive area in the country is NYC, but from my experience, you can find something a little more reasonable outside the city. With SF, it seems the entire area is too expensive for a teacher's salary. It can't be that teachers are commuting from Sacramento...

It's only very recently (in the last year or so) that rents in the East Bay have gotten almost too high for a teacher's salary. Not sure how that's going to affect the supply of teachers in the area. A solution one Bay Area community came up with a couple of decades ago was to buy a couple of apartment buildings and provide low-rent apartments to public servants like teachers, police, and firefighters, so they could afford to live in the community they serve. That would be a model worth studying and emulating throughout the Bay Area.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

It's only very recently (in the last year or so) that rents in the East Bay have gotten almost too high for a teacher's salary. Not sure how that's going to affect the supply of teachers in the area. A solution one Bay Area community came up with a couple of decades ago was to buy a couple of apartment buildings and provide low-rent apartments to public servants like teachers, police, and firefighters, so they could afford to live in the community they serve. That would be a model worth studying and emulating throughout the Bay Area.

I have heard of some police agencies paying more to officers that live in the city they serve, but it wasn't because of costs, but to keep officers in the community. I know a lot of officers don't like to live in the city the work though, lessen the chance of running into someone you arrested while you are with your family.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by shooting4life

I have heard of some police agencies paying more to officers that live in the city they serve, but it wasn't because of costs, but to keep officers in the community. I know a lot of officers don't like to live in the city the work though, lessen the chance of running into someone you arrested while you are with your family.

I don't think that works; Cal. Gov't. Code §50083. No local agency or district shall require that its employees be residents of such local agency or district. I know of at least one community that offered a bonus to the Police Chief if he would live in the City. He gave the address of a friend's condo and never set foot in it.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by shooting4life

When did being able to own a home in the city where you work become the standard?

Sometimes you have to commute from one area to another area, this applies if you work in tech, a teacher, garbage man or work at McDonald's. Welcome to the real world.

Here's some 'real world' for you. A teacher in SF makes about the same as a teacher anywhere else in Northern California. Why would a teacher accept your 'suck it up life is tough' philosophy and commute from Vacaville so that they can teach there when they can get a job in Vacaville and walk to work? There will, at some time in the not too distant future, come a time when San Francisco will run out of local residents with teaching degrees- they only exist now because they rented or bought before the run up in prices. When you have to "import" teachers (or any public employees) you have to either offer them enough money to offset the commute, or subsidize housing in the community.