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A property at 231 Grant Ave. in Palo Alto is owned by Santa Clara County, which plans to turn the site into a 110-unit affordable housing complex for school teachers and staff. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

A 110-unit teacher housing project is on its way to Grant Avenue in Palo Alto after the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved it on Tuesday.

Supervisor Joe Simitian initially proposed the project in 2018 in an effort to provide school teachers and staff with housing in the communities they work in.

The project will provide affordable housing for teachers and faculty in 12 school districts in Santa Clara County and southern San Mateo County. Construction begins in fall 2022, with an estimated completion in fall 2024.

Simitian said as a former school board member and the son of a school teacher, he knows this project could greatly impact the lives of teachers for the better while benefitting schools and students.

“No one wins when local teachers have to commute from miles and miles away. It’s just that much harder to attract and retain the best teachers available,” Simitian said in a statement. “Time in the car is time not spent with students or preparing lesson plans. And our teachers become more and more remote from the communities where they teach. By having teachers work and live nearby, we’re strengthening their role in the community.”

The project already has a reserved $3 million from the Palo Alto City Council and $25 million in grant funding from Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook.

More information on the 231 Grant Educator Workforce Housing project can be found at sccgov.org/231grant.

Santa Clara County’s proposal for 231 Grant Ave. calls for 110 apartments for teachers and other employees of area school districts. Rendering by Van Meter Williams Pollack LLC.

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4 Comments

  2. More socialism! Even though we are broke!
    “It’s just that much harder to retain the best teachers”
    I like how you think sucking the talent from around the country is some kind of benevolence. Your understanding of economics is incredibly selfish
    What you’re doing here is a disaster
    Shoving teachers into close quarters during a pandemic…you’re such a hero

  3. Palo Alto has had no problem filling teaching vacancies. I consider myself a staunch progressive, yet there are good reasons you want to pay competitive, market-driven salaries (and we are, which is why we have no problem hiring teachers) and not start hacking on things like housing, vehicle allowances, child care, and such as part of union perks. This is especially true when the politics of what developer gets what project approved and why behind the scenes gets murky… and why certain offsets get waived, or reduced… or what gets fast-tracked. Buckets and buckets of money up for grabs for the in-crowd.

    Not to digress, but healthcare also needs to be decoupled from employment into a basic, universal, single-payer system. The linkage of healthcare to employment has done great damage.

  4. The fact that this project is progressing, even with all the cost-overruns, won’t stop the YIMBY’s from claiming we do nothing to help. Just a few days ago, an uninformed poster *demanded* we finally provide teachers housing although this project has clearly been in the news.

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