By Lindy Browning | Contributor, Rocky Mountain Voice
From Deer Creek School District on the far Eastern Plains to Rangely on the western border of Utah, from Telluride and Aspen to Vail and Steamboat Springs, school districts all over rural Colorado are struggling with a need for affordable and available housing for teachers.
In an effort to begin finding solutions for what school districts foresee as a long-term problem, Colorado Rural Schools Alliance (CRSA) hosted their first Rural Housing Forum in Beaver Creek on Thursday, Oct. 24.
CRSA represents 146 of 178 school districts in Colorado. The remaining 32 are located in urban areas. Chris Holbert, formerly a Colorado senator and Minority Leader, and current consultant for CRSA, doesn’t think that one-size solutions fit all school districts.
“CRSA represents rural mountain resort communities such as Aspen, Telluride, Vail and Steamboat Springs, where buildable land is in limited supply and values are extremely high. CRSA also represents rural agriculture or mining communities such as Deer Trail, Vilas, Rangley and Yampa, where population is sparse, and homebuilders may not exist,” he said. “CRSA member districts are also politically diverse, ranging from some of the most liberal to some of the most conservative communities… and everything in between.”
Since local school boards determine what they are able to pay teachers, and some districts have more resources than others, this further complicates the problem of finding solutions. In Basalt recently, a partnership between Pitkin County, Habitat for Humanity, Roaring Fork Valley and Roaring Fork Schools, built 27 modular homes behind Basalt High School for teachers and their families.
“Affordable housing for teachers and other staff members is one of our most vital needs as a school district. We are so grateful for all the partners involved in the Basalt Vista Project,” said Rob Stein, superintendent of Roaring Fork School District.
Colorado rural school districts are generally searching for ways to attract credentialed talent to their communities and to retain people who are already in those communities. Housing is a key factor when attempting to attract or retain personnel.
When discussing possible solutions for school districts, it was clear during the forum that each community had different needs, assets and challenges they would need to assess before committing to a way forward. Some ideas that were discussed were, whether the school district, the town or the state had land to donate for projects. The theory is that if the land is not part of the building cost, the homes would be much more affordable to build, and either sell or rent at a more appropriate price, considering a teacher’s salary.
The average annual salary for a public school teacher in Colorado is $59,911, according to salary.com, but it flexes down to $41,007 the website reads.
Solutions might include home ownership scenarios or rental housing scenarios. Housing might look like detached, single-family homes or multi-family housing such as apartments, condominiums, townhouses, or clustered patio-style homes.
In some areas, the community as a whole may want to support not only housing for teachers, but other critical housing needs for their overall workforce. Some of the towns that have already begun implementing public/private funded housing are Rifle, Ilium, Norwood, Basalt, Gunnision, Ouray, Ridgway, Buena Vista, Fairplay, South Fork, Kit Carson and the Vail Valley.
When asked if school boards should be in the housing business, Holbert said: “It might not be obvious, but the broad application of local control found in the Colorado Constitution since 1876 deserves to be understood and carefully considered. From my perspective, how any local school board might respond to that responsibility is also a matter of local control.”
Holbert adds that it’s important for people to understand that it isn’t the federal government or the state government that would be funding or overseeing these projects. They are local projects, approved and overseen by local governments, with the local people making the choices.
Former Colorado Sen. Gail Schwartz, who is currently the president of Habitat for Humanity Roaring Fork, indicates her belief the Western Slope communities are severely constrained in terms of affordable and available housing.
“In my opinion, off-site built modular homes are a big part of the answer,” she said, pointing to a project in Basalt where the school district had some vacant land.
To address the affordable housing crisis for teachers and others essential to the community, Habitat for Humanity Roaring Fork Valley, Roaring Fork Schools and Pitkin County came together in innovative and unprecedented community collaboration.
“The cost of a home in this area is $1.4 million dollars. Our teachers and school district staff can’t afford to purchase a home in that market,” Schwartz said. “It’s so important that there is affordable deed-restricted housing available for the people who work in our communities. It’s critical to retain them and we can’t do that if there is not affordable housing for our teachers and workforces.”
She continued: “I would like to see some of these off-site building and manufacturing companies begin new businesses on the Western Slope. It would provide jobs in the communities, and affordable, available housing for the workforce in those communities.”
The collaboration between public and private partners, financing and lending partners, and with goodwill from the public makes it possible that, “There are ways to work this out,” Schwartz said.