There are endless ways to spend 120 minutes. A long walk from the western end of Golden Gate Park to the peak of Bernal Hill is one great example. San Francisco State University doesn’t want its employees spending that time driving to and from work, which a big chunk of them must do.
That’s why the university, with 3,860 employees, is doing its part to alleviate the region’s housing crisis with an ambitious project to build at least 250 homes on campus for teachers, maintenance workers, and other employees.
Dubbed Educators Village, the project could jump to 1,000 units in later phases if all goes well. The university says the first 250 apartments, all below-market units, could also house employees of the San Francisco Unified School District and City College. On state land, the project would not need to go through SF’s extensive approval process.
But it would directly benefit the city, which has some of the nation’s highest housing prices, forcing many people who can’t work remotely to commute or to find a job closer to where they live.
Affordable campus housing would also make hiring much easier, says SF State history department chair Laura Lisy-Wagner: “Housing is the number one concern for possible recruits in the area,” which means she must emphasize how “wonderful it is being part of this community, and we assure them there are ways to make it work.”
Lisy-Wagner lives in Martinez and comes to campus at least three days a week. It can take up to two hours each way, depending on traffic.
Share the load?
A 2022 survey of SFSU employees found 40 percent of participants commuted to campus; 50 percent of those commuters drove their car and at least 32 percent did it for at least a full hour each way.
Since 2018, SF State has added living quarters on campus for more than 1,000 students. Now it’s turning to its workers. Officials know where Educators Village will be built — the site has quite a backstory to it — but paying for it remains a puzzle.
The school’s regular budget isn’t available. “I get asked this all the time: ‘Why don’t you put some of it into housing?’” SFSU president Lynn Mahoney told the school publication Golden Gate Xpress in December. “Legally, I can’t use my instructional dollars to offset the cost of housing. That’s why we have to find other dollars.”
For a dormitory that’s due to open by fall 2024, SF State used $116.5 million from a special appropriation to build student housing across the state. Short of more funding bills from Sacramento, the school would have to find other sources, including bonds. The less it has to borrow, however, the more it can keep rents affordable for its staff.
SF State is in talks with the SF Unified School District and SF City College to share the load — and ultimately share the housing, according to Jason Porth, vice president of university enterprises. SFUSD and CCSF can go to city voters for financial support, which could add another financing source to the mix. (It’s too early to say how the units would be apportioned, says Porth, and too early to estimate total units or costs.)
Despite mutual interest, Porth said they have not yet reached a commitment. “We’ve had early conversations with them,” said Porth. “We feel that involving them makes the project much more compelling in an effort to support educators from across the city. We do believe there is value in pursuing it collectively.”
The more money put into the project up front, according to Porth, the less debt the university needs to take on — and the more favorable the subsidies could be for its tenants: “We’ll try everything we can think of to find the appropriate source of funds.”
City College media representatives did not respond to questions, but the president of the CCSF board of trustees, Alan Wong, told The Frisc: “I haven’t heard about the project, but I support educator housing and doing whatever we can to help teachers and students be able to afford to live in San Francisco. If there’s anything City College can do, I’m willing to help get us on board.”
There are people who struggle to make ends meet. Affordable housing could make it easier to save money to maybe buy something one day.
Erasmo Flores, SF State maintenance worker
When asked about a potential collaboration with SF State, SFUSD spokesperson Laura Dudnick said via email that the district is working on its facilities master plan (FMP) that will need to be approved by the Board of Education. “In alignment with the FMP, the facilities division is having conversations with potential partners and re-examining our own portfolio of properties,” Dudnick added. Despite talk for years of more teacher housing, the district has embarked upon only one project on its own underused properties across the city.
Building affordable housing is already complicated. But sky-high costs mean SF State must contemplate an even more complex project. “It’s extremely expensive to build right now for a variety of reasons, the cost of goods, the ability to get materials, the cost of hiring a skilled workforce,” said Porth. “We’re seeing costs of construction that can be between $750 and $1,000 a square foot, depending on what you’re constructing.”
The trying of Lot 25
The money’s up in the air, but SFSU has chosen a site: Lot 25, a parking lot that backs up onto Lowell High School’s property. For some time it was seen as a potential spot for vehicles that serve as homes for people parked along Winston Drive and other neighborhood streets.
It also has some colorful local history, serving for 29 years as home to the Sutro Library, which was founded in 1917 by former SF mayor and philanthropist Adolph Sutro but struggled to find a permanent home. When the library’s modular temporary structure was demolished, the collection was moved to SF State’s J. Paul Leonard Library and has at least 125,000 rare books and manuscripts that need special care, including Shakespearean folios and regional historical documents. (Porth said construction on Lot 25 will follow California Environmental Quality Act rules to ensure there is no archaeological disruption.)
The project could also free up space on campus for students, Porth noted. SF State employees currently occupy some of these spaces but could shift to the affordable units of Educators Village. According to the student association, SFSU last year had its largest on-campus population, 4,107 students; the wait list for on-campus housing was set at 1,100 students in 2021, the latest figure available.
Porth isn’t calling Educators Village a done deal, but it’s far enough along that officials have begun to consider different models. They’ve toured two local projects dedicated to public school employees, one in Daly City and the other in San Francisco, near Ocean Beach.
The $75.5 million, 122-unit Daly City complex opened in May 2022 and is exclusively for faculty and staff of Jefferson Union High School District in San Mateo County. The funding came from a voter-approved bond in 2018 and investors who will be paid back through tenant leases. To provide regular availability, tenants have a limit of five years but can request an extension. They must also qualify for the below market rate units. JUHSD says that it houses 25 percent of its workforce at the site.
A few miles north, on SF’s western edge, the Shirley Chisholm Village finally broke ground last year after much delay. A quarter of the 135 units will be for tenants earning 40 to 60 percent of the area median income, and the rest are for people earning 80 to 120 percent. All tenants must be SFUSD employees. The project was expected to be ready by fall 2024, but part of its web of financing included Silicon Valley Bank loans, and it’s unclear if the bank’s downfall will cause trouble.
Porth said these models are the most attractive they’ve studied so far.
Erasmo Flores has been an SFSU maintenance worker for 23 years. He doesn’t have a long commute, just a few minutes to and from Daly City’s Westlake neighborhood, but he applauds the idea of a few years of guaranteed affordable housing. “There are people who struggle to make ends meet,” he said, and “it could make it easier to save money to maybe buy something one day.”