School District in North Carolina Launches Affordable Housing Initiative for Educators

School systems around the country are navigating rising housing costs and stagnant teacher salaries, and a recent article in 19th News highlights how Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) in North Carolina are responding to nearly 300 job vacancies in 2024 with a three-phase initiative to ensure teachers can afford housing. Charlotte is the most expensive city in North Carolina, and the “At Home in CMS” initiative will offer apartments at rent below market rate, homeownership opportunities, and eventually build a housing development for teachers. The effort comes in response to a district-wide survey in which half of the responders reported that they are extremely cost-burdened, spending more than 50% of their monthly income on housing costs. The CMS initiative is modeled after similar programs in California that provide affordable housing for teachers, including the Santa Clara Unified School District which offers rental units at 80% of the market rate.  

The article highlights how the availability of affordable housing impacts educators’ ability to live in the communities they teach in, which impacts the quality of education for students. “All students deserve a caring, qualified and committed teacher in their classroom. Unfortunately, inadequate pay, the rising cost of living, and skyrocketing student debt have made it much more difficult to attract and retain educators because they cannot afford to stay in the education profession they love,” said National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle. A 2023 study from the National Council on Teacher Quality found that teachers are unable to afford housing in many metropolitan areas across the country. The shortage of affordable housing has a disparate impact on women educators as well, with women making up 77% of K-12 public school teachers.  

The “At Home in CMS” initiative is one example of a nationwide trend of school districts seeking to address the housing affordability crisis faced by their workforce. Housing affordability is a challenge for many low wage workers, and NLIHC’s Out of Reach report shows how wages across low wage occupations are not keeping up with the rising cost of rental housing. State and local responses to the housing affordability crisis must be supported by expanded resources at the federal level. The Opportunity Starts at Home (OSAH) campaign seeks to expand federal housing resources to bridge the gap between rents and incomes, increase the supply of affordable housing, and prevent housing instability and eviction to ensure that households with the lowest incomes have access to stable, accessible, and affordable housing.  

Read the article here. Read the OSAH campaign’s education fact sheet here.