- By Greg Wong | Examiner staff writer |
- Apr 1, 2024 Updated Apr 2, 2024 (SFExaminer.com)
San Francisco public-school employees on Tuesday can apply to live in a first-of-its-kind affordable housing development in the Outer Sunset, Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Unified School District announced Monday.
The 135-unit Shirley Chisholm Village — named after the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, who was also a teacher and public-education advocate — was constructed to accommodate nearly 10,000 San Francisco public-school employees. It’s located at 1360 43rd Ave. and scheduled to open this fall.
District workers can apply on DAHLIA, The City’s housing portal, which will enter them into an application lottery.
“San Francisco has a housing shortage that is holding us back from being a thriving, affordable city, but we are making significant changes to get more homes built,” Mayor London Breed said Monday in a release. “Shirley Chisholm Village is an example of our work to make this city more affordable. We must continue to build on this momentum to find every opportunity to bring housing solutions that are affordable so all working people can live in the communities that they work so hard to support.”
The development, built on the former site of the neighborhood park Playland, is the first 100% affordable housing project for educators and city employees, officials said.
The property contains 24 studios, as well as 43 one-bedroom, 58 two-bedroom and 9 three-bedroom apartments. The City will give tenant preference to applicants in which at least one person in the household is either a current educator or school-district employee, and households earning up to 120% of the Area Median Income — $121,000 for an individual and $172,900 for a household of four.
“Shirley Chisholm Village poses a unique opportunity to provide educators an affordable opportunity to live in the community in which they work,” SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne said. “We support efforts to create more affordable housing for our educators.”
The Examiner reached out to United Educators of San Francisco, SFUSD’s teachers union, for reaction, but didn’t receive a response before publication.
According to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis last year, San Francisco teachers make an average of $98,000 per year, 129th out of 268 districts in the state. The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in The City last year was $18,048 per year, according to Zumper.
The project is the first of a 10-year city effort to offer affordable housing to San Francisco public-school employees. The process began in 2015, when the Board of Supervisors and Board of Education passed a resolution supporting the development of housing for educators in San Francisco. It has undergone several starts and stops, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and SFUSD budget cuts.
Last year, The City announced it was launching two additional affordable-housing projects that will deliver 135 homes to SFUSD employees: one on 750 Golden Gate Ave. and the other at 2205 Mission St.
“If we want to keep families in San Francisco we need more housing and we need good public schools,” said San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio, who represents district encompassing Shirley Chisholm Village. “Good schools require teachers, and teachers need a place to live. That’s why the affordable housing we’re building in the Sunset for SFUSD employees is essential for our city to thrive.”
“Let’s do more,” he said. “This should only be the beginning.”
