Building for the Future – Workforce Housing, Retention, and Community Development
With staffing shortages rising and housing costs surging, school districts across the country are facing a fundamental question: how can we keep the people who support our schools living in the communities they serve? At Facilitron University 4, the panel “Building for the Future: Workforce Housing, Retention, and Community Development” took a deep dive into how forward-thinking districts are leveraging land, policy, and partnerships to develop housing that supports recruitment, retention, and long-term community investment.
The conversation brought together leaders from San Diego, Santa Clara, San Francisco, and real estate advisors with decades of experience in public school development. What united them was a shared understanding: workforce housing isn’t a bonus—it’s a strategic imperative.
View the full session:
A Growing Crisis, Backed by Data
Across all participating districts, the data tell a clear story. Housing affordability is directly impacting staff morale, recruitment, and retention. In San Francisco, over 50% of surveyed employees reported spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Santa Clara shared stories of custodial staff commuting more than two hours each way. And in San Diego, commute time was directly linked to employee morale.
“Commute time lowers your employee morale,” said Tracey Tincknell of San Diego Unified. “That was a key driver in getting the board to act.”
Al Grazioli, who previously led real estate for LAUSD, recounted results from a survey of 75,000 employees—where 3,000 to 4,000 people disclosed they were unhoused, living in vehicles, or bouncing between motels. These weren’t fringe cases—they were essential employees.
“Three or four thousand people are still figuring out a way to come to work every day, or homeless, or live in their car… That’s why we’re doing this.”
Housing as a Retention Strategy
While some districts initially framed their programs as “teacher housing,” many have since expanded to include classified and support staff—recognizing that the entire workforce needs solutions.
Santa Clara’s housing program, which began over 20 years ago, has helped build roots. Employees who started in the housing development are now site principals and district directors. The program was self-funded using a lease-purchase model—an unusual but replicable success.
“Many of our principals now started out in the housing development. And they stayed,” said Michelle Healy. “They still connect.”
In San Diego, strong demand for an initial 53-unit workforce housing project led to deeper population analysis, guiding future development in terms of unit size, pricing, and location. In San Francisco, the district’s 135-unit project received more than 1,200 applications—a sobering indicator of demand.
Leveraging Assets Without Losing Control
Rather than sell land outright, districts are increasingly using joint occupancy agreements and long-term land leases that retain public ownership while allowing development to move forward.
“It’s zero cost to the district,” explained Tincknell. “The land is usually for a dollar because we’re getting back the workforce housing as well as supplemental district use.”
These agreements, permitted under California Ed Code, allow districts to repurpose underutilized land for staff housing and still include community or educational programming in the mix. In doing so, districts avoid the political backlash and permanence of declaring land surplus while moving much more quickly than through traditional bond-funded development.
Partnerships with developers—particularly those willing to work within workforce affordability constraints—are crucial. But so is internal alignment. As Grazioli emphasized, nothing happens without board and superintendent support.
“If you don’t have a superintendent or a board willing to drive this initiative… it’s not going to happen.”
Community, Culture, and Design Matter
For these initiatives to succeed, they must be more than units—they must build community.
San Francisco’s housing design included input from both neighbors and educators, avoiding the “project” feel and intentionally integrating amenities and architectural transparency. In Santa Clara, shared community rooms in housing developments have strengthened personal and professional connections among staff.
“It wasn’t like a closed-off building,” said Karen Sullivan of SFUSD. “There was an effort to really design something that fit in the neighborhood.”
Planning for the Long Haul
Though the impact on retention is clear anecdotally, formal measurement remains a challenge. Districts are just beginning to set numeric goals—like housing 10% of their workforce within the next decade—and improve systems to track outcomes.
But leaders were candid about what they’d do differently. Many noted the importance of planning for long-term maintenance from the start—funding reserves, planning for capital replacements, and building operating models that scale with usage.
“You’re going to have to replace the roof in 25 years,” Healy said. “That’s something we need to be planning for now.”
From Crisis to Opportunity
This panel made one thing clear: school districts are not just education providers—they are major landholders with untapped potential to meet critical workforce needs.
With the right strategy, support, and community engagement, workforce housing can become a core part of how districts recruit, retain, and care for their staff—and by extension, their students.
“You have to figure out a way to connect that need to the educational outcomes,” Grazioli said. “To positive educational outcomes.”