The San Diego Unified School District is considering building 1,000 units of income-restricted housing — which could house up to 10% of its employees in the next 10 years, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
“The time has come for us to set some bold but achievable long-term goals together,” Lee Dulgeroff, San Diego Unified’s facilities executive director, said at a board workshop last week, according to the Union-Tribune.
Building housing, with the hopes of improving recruitment and retention, has become central in the district’s real estate strategy. That strategy involves having developers build housing on land owned by the district with joint-occupancy leases. The money collected by the district can be used in any part of its budget.
The current proposal has San Diego Unified building more than 1,000 units across five of its current sites — with moderate income housing being for employees whose families earn between 80% and 120% of the county’s area median income, and low income units for those who earn up to 80% of the area median income.
More realistically, LeSar Development Consultants senior principal Craig Adelman told the Union-Tribune that in order to compete for the assistance, families would need to make 60% of the area median income — $63,680 — or less.
Some, including school board member Quinton Baldis, have argued that San Diego Unified should also consider housing for students and families in need.
“I truly feel like providing homes and affordable housing for our students is aligned more with our goals and guardrails as a district,” Baldis told the Union-Tribune.
