Saturday morning reading: Apartments on school campuses?

"L.A. Unified seeks to build apartments on campuses' surplus land" by the L.A. Times' David Zahniser jolted me out of my Saturday morning sleepiness.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking to develop low-cost apartments on as many as 12 campuses in an effort to help teachers find less expensive housing and live closer to their jobs.

District officials have begun asking real estate developers to submit housing proposals on school campuses in Hollywood and Harbor Gateway and are reviewing other campuses where apartments could be built on surplus land.

That's a twist on "workforce housing." Among the arguments for: school employees often have trouble finding affordable housing and this would help cut the teacher attrition rate. Against: homes are being destroyed in nearby communities to make room for schools while charter schools need campus space.

Is it just me, is it just Saturday or is that a real head-scratcher?

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: A free lunch at LAUSD. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

P.S. Don't even ask why I'm still here. Some events defy explanation. Think: reprieve.

Comments

[TakeFive]

Welcome back Lauren. Sorry they walked you right up to the edge of the plank.

[Patrick Duffy, HousingChronicles.com]

A reprieve is always good news.

[syscom3]

I think the LAUSD should concentrate on education and not socialist command and control planning.

[Cal]

OT:

Read:
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Woman_Fights_Foreclosure_Chains_Herself_to_Home.html

Then:
http://www.cbs8.com/features/special_assignment/story.php?id=144918#

Finally:
http://junereynosales.com/html/about.html

[Chris in Sacramento]

If teachers live a three-minute walk from home--as opposed to a forty-five minute drive-- won't that leave them a little more time for grading papers or contacting parents? The teachers will become better integrated into the communities that they serve. Plus, having teachers around at night opens up greater possibilities for increased after-school activities for kids (or even for the neighborhood's residents). All in all, having teachers live close to the schools at which they teach is a win-win-win for the teachers, kids and community.

[sfvrealestate]

Lauren, it seems that it would be cheaper to build on land the school district already owns. Stanford University did this same thing a few years back for its employees and it worked beautifully.

[E]

Who wants to live where they work? Too close for comfort...especially on sick days.

[bigunit]

I'm with syscom3. The word Unified smacks of Socialism. I motion to home-school every last student at LAUSD. Let the teachers make house calls. Privatize & deregulate to make our students more competitive; its worked so far. We'll be able to attract the best & brightest young educators for less $$ due to our 300+ days of sunny weather annually. With the money saved we can put more police officers on the street and use the vacant schools to solve the issue of overcrowded prisons. See how easy that was?

[Suzi]

Why on earth would they build more housing? The market is tanking and there's plenty of housing available. Maybe pay them a little more and they can afford their own housing. LAUSD is just a big big mess with brainless board members if they go forward with this. HORRIBLE. I am ashame to be a former alumni. Have them visit this site and look at the value of home prices!! It's been declining..so why build more??

http://www.homepricetrend.com

[galt]

LAUSD has done a fine job of efficiently managing the constructing and maintenance of its school facilities in a cost effective manner. The results of expanding into apartment buildings for its employees can easily be extrapolated based on LAUSD's past history.

Meeting the cradle to grave needs of its union protected chosen few using public funds. We all know how well this state driven model worked for the former USSR.

[sheila]

i can see doing it if they make the buildings LEED platinum/net zero, use them as "demonstration" properties and offer them as a temporary affordable housing incentive, say, to teachers who went for their masters' degrees and need 5 years to pay down their school debt, or teachers who are willing to take on harder schools or harder classes...

first of all, if you look at any major corporation hiring executive talent, they get cars, auto insurance, housing, stock options, gym memberships, corporate credit cards and all kinds of perqs, so it's not socialist to offer a few perqs to the best and brightest recruits to an incredibly unappealing but equally crucial field, it's normal.

even so, i think we forget that education is more than a "business," it is a critical societal function. americans now seem dumber than ever before, and when you get Mayor Bloomberg, Alan Greenspan and others just giving up on US education and calling for widespread immigration to get smart, skilled entrepreneurs to live in america, we need to step it up seriously. if that means luring smart people to teaching who could be making a lot of money in the private sector, then why not? it's better than abandoning our kids and importing the "finished product" in the form of computer scientists, inventors and creators, isn't it?

not to be master of the obvious, but polling amongst existing teachers to determine whether this would work would be the smartest thing to do...

as always, the simple, knee-jerk reaction may not be the correct one.

[lancho fieri]

Why not give teachers and police officers a credit to buy a foreclosed property near their school/station? HUD has a "good neighbor next door" program that supposedly does this, offering foreclosures at a 50% discount to officers and teachers who live in revitilization areas... but no los angeles or long beach homes have been part of this program for over three years. Time for the banks and the school districts to start their own "good neighbor" program. Might help clear some of the foreclosure rolls in south l.a./north long beach zips.

[CaliforniaDreamin]

So, the LAUSD spent tens of millions of dollars to condemn and demolish the historic Ambassador Hotel, only now to find that they have too much land on their hands, due to a drop in the influx of illegal immigrants due to the tanking US economy? How this travesty of a school system continues to exist boggles the mind.

[Thomas Ulrich]

Housing for teachers on campus? I think its great! Next we can make it mandatory that politicians use public transportation while they are in office.
That way no one has to worry about getting to work or being uncomfortable in the hollowed halls of the dorms...

[TrojanDLA]

LAUSD is a bureaucratic morass of excessive waste and failed policies. Don't even start with that absolute joke, "No Child Left Behind". Government can not create a "one size fits all" approach to education - it can not be efficiently standardized.

The days of useless rote memorization of historical dates and obscure historical figures should have ended decades ago. Should a 9th grader really be memorizing what happened in 1472 or the name of an Ottoman King in the 17th Century? More importantly, what good is all this work when it is promptly forgotten 2 years later?

Memorizing approaches to salesmanship, beginning business accounting, and household budgeting = good.

Memorizing exaggerations about Christopher Columbus's achievements = silly

[Tim K.]

I believe overall this is a good thing. Most universities do this for their students - they provide subsidized housing, definitely below market rates, to ensure their students do not have the distraction of having to deal with landlords. Think of it as a workplace perk, like a company car, or a free lunch. It often works out much more efficiently for both the employer and the employee, which is why it's a good thing.

It breaks down when the employer/employee relationship is much more temporary, which at this point teacher/school relationships are not. It also tends to be factored into the salary, and so you might see that teachers end up getting much lower cost of living adjustments going forward because the cost of housing is "assumed" to be worth a consistent market value, even if the actual provided housing does not keep pace.

In the long run it probably won't matter. This housing bubble will have deflated prices back to normal levels by the time this happens, so the housing will probably end up being used or rented to make up the difference.

[HD002]

1) Think about the most irritating co-workers you deal with at your job. Now imagine them being your neighbor and having to see them after work and on the weekend for the rest of your career.

2) I taught for LAUSD in South Gate. Frankly speaking, you couldn't pay me to live anywhere around there.

3) university faculty housing => sounds great
public teacher housing in unsafe area => no thanks, you try it.