Looking for a bold idea? Here’s one, free housing for early educators:
“In 2019 we launched our Teacher Housing Initiative, which provides rent-free housing to our teachers,” Allyx Schiavone explained during a recent 9:30 Call. “This initiative supports our essential workforce and elevates our teachers compensation through the salary benefit of free housing.”
What sounds too good to be true is a fact of life for some of the early educators who work for The Friends Center for Children in New Haven, Conn., where Schiavone is the executive director.
In a Friends Center article, Schiavone explains, “Providing free housing to our teachers is not a bonus or a privilege. It is our attempt to counterbalance a system designed to marginalize an under-resourced and overburdened industry. We believe that bold measures are needed to change the status quo.”
“We are currently paying women to live in poverty,” Schiavone added on The 9:30 Call.
Philanthropy has played a key role in this effort. Early on, the Teacher Housing Initiative received a $750,000 pledge from “Greg Melville, a member of New Haven Friends Meeting, and his wife, Susan Fox,” the article adds.
In addition, the homes are designed and built by students from Yale’s School of Architecture.
In a USA Today op-ed, Paris Pierce, a Friends Center early educator and a recipient of free housing, writes:
“This program isn’t just about living in safe housing without needing to pay rent, though that has made an incredible difference − this initiative is about helping teachers build a foundation for long-term financial stability.
“Through this initiative, I have been provided a financial coach who helps me set and reach savings goals with the money that would have gone toward rent. We discuss budgeting, credit, banking and any other financial concerns I might have.”
In its coverage of the Teacher Housing Initiative, Connecticut Public Radio provides a larger context, explaining:
“Connecticut preschool teachers with college degrees typically earn about 30% less than their counterparts in kindergarten through eighth grade school systems, according to Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
“Preschool teachers and day care providers are undervalued nationwide, for various reasons, including the industry’s market being based on how much parents are willing or able to pay for care, a history of women and people of color taking on the roles and the perception less education is needed for the jobs, according to the study.”
To learn more, check out The 9:30 Call video. And keep asking the big question: How can this project be replicated by other programs, through other partnerships in cities and towns across the country?