School district working on community housing plan

“Should we even be in the housing business?”

By Kendra Walker

As the Gunnison Watershed School District (GWSD) looks at ways to increase its staff recruitment and retention, the school board is considering how the district can be more involved with housing opportunities. Over the past several months, the board has been working with housing specialist Willa Williford to assess the housing needs of the district’s staff, with next steps aimed at developing a high-level plan outlining how it might move forward in the affordable housing scene in the Gunnison Valley.

“The goal is to better understand what challenges district employees face and how the district might help,” said Williford. “Housing is not a silver bullet, but it can help your competitiveness. The vision for a school community housing plan is to determine what outcomes we are trying to get out of this, what would make it successful, what tools are out there, how much time and money it would take, etc.”

Currently, the school district owns a duplex in Crested Butte for employee housing, which includes two, two-bedroom/two-bathroom units managed by the Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority (GVRHA). The goal is that tenants occupy the space for approximately three years to encourage people to find roots in the valley and help others in need of housing.

The district also owns three properties in Gunnison that could be developed. The properties include the old bus barn’s .57 acres at Ohio and 11th, 1 acre on the northwest corner parcel of Gunnison High School and about .5 acres on the southeast corner of the Gunnison Community School parcel.

The district currently has approximately 30 unfilled positions. Because there is a large share of employees at or approaching retirement age, the district estimates 30-40 retirements in the next five years, which could result in the need to hire 70-80 new employees through 2028.

Staff housing statistics

Recently, GWSD staff members were surveyed to assess the district’s current housing needs. Of 165 teachers and 235 staff, 273 employees responded to the survey. Just over half, or 54%, of employee households have a gross income between $40,000 and $75,000. Williford noted that 47% of the district’s employees have families. Another 46% are comprised of one person living alone or a couple without kids. 

Williford also noted that about half of employees have been with the district for six years or less. Thirty percent have worked for GWSD for three years or less, 36% for three to 10 years and 34% have worked for the district for 10 years or more. “Employees not already deeply rooted in the community are more likely to depart the valley to find work elsewhere due to unstable or unaffordable housing.”

Williford said that 71% of employee households own their home, which is a higher rate than all households within the district’s boundary. The homeownership rate also increases the longer people are employed by the district. Additionally, 68% of homeowner households earn $75,000 or more, where 65% of renter households earn $60,000 or less. “The incomes of renters are significantly lower than that of homeowners,” she said.

When asked about their satisfaction with their current residence, Williford noted that employees tend to be much more satisfied when they own. “Renters are much less likely to be satisfied with their current residence than owners. So, we are concerned about folks in this cohort who really want to stay in the valley and move into the homeownership space.” Williford said that 85% of renters prefer to move in the next five years and 71% of those employees want to purchase a home.

Williford explained that with rental housing, the biggest challenge tends to be quality and availability. “For nearly a decade, rental vacancy rates have been below 1%, meaning that it is very difficult to find a home or apartment.”

Williford explained that affordable housing means paying no more than 30% gross income for rent/mortgage and utilities. The monthly housing affordability for the 80% Area Median Income (AMI) in Gunnison County is $1,406/month for a one-bedroom, $1,688/month for a two-bedroom apartment, $1,949/month for a three-bedroom and $2,174/month for a four-bedroom. “The missing middle of the housing bridge tends to be the 80% to 120% AMI, which is often where your employees lay,” she said. 

When GWSD employees were asked how much they are willing to pay for their housing, 74% of renters and 44% of owners said they are willing to pay no more than $1,500 per month (or $18,000 a year). In Gunnison County, the 2022 median sale price for a single-family home was $738,000 and a townhouse/condo was $615,000. Williford said a household would need an annual income of about $221,500 to afford the median single-family home. 

Teacher housing in peer communities 

Williford said that other school districts in the state are trying to respond to the housing dynamic. “Other districts are taking the stance that having some housing supply in their control gives them some competitive advantage,” she said. 

Looking at peer communities to Gunnison Watershed, Williford said the four most active districts in the employee housing space are the Telluride, Aspen, Roaring Fork and Eagle school districts. Generally, their housing priorities focus on new hires, and they all have strong partnerships with their local housing authorities. “There’s a bunch to learn from them,” she said. 

Telluride School District has 13 rental units and owns two units. The prices are based on 25% of the lowest teacher salary. The district is also currently considering a bond measure for staff housing. 

Aspen School District has more than 100 rentals, and prices range from $600/month for a studio to $2,400/month for a four-bedroom. 

Roaring Fork School District has 66 rentals and owns 14 units. The rents are determined by income and household size, with a point-based application system based on income, dependents and location. This district has 50 new rentals coming next summer. 

Both the Aspen and Roaring Fork districts have secured funding through the passage of bond measures. “I would love to know how those communities managed to pass bond measures,” said board president Tyler Martineau. “That would seem challenging.”

Eagle School District has 26 rentals and owns 12 units, with rents generally ranging from $1,000-$2,000/month. Eagle works closely in coordination with Habitat for Humanity and its rental inventory includes mobile home lots. Williford noted that about one-third of Eagle’s inventory are master leases and they have a goal of adding 130 employee units by 2030. Eagle also relies on certificates of participation, which is a pledge of an existing asset as collateral. 

Williford said the school districts are also partnering with other employers.

“Eagle is talking with Vail Valley Health and other large employers in that valley to work together to build something that will serve the valley-wide needs” said Williford.

Other considerations

The board asked about the district issuing employee stipends or incentives. Williford said that is a possible avenue, but it can add up fast. For example, giving an employee a $500/month stipend amounts to $6,000 annually for just one employee. Providing a $500/month stipend to 30 employees for 10 years amounts to $1.8 million. 

Even if the district did provide housing stipends, Williford noted that there is no inventory and “everyone is just competing over the same zero inventory. From an overall housing perspective, we don’t have much control because there’s no supply in the inventory.” She suggested looking into district-owned rental housing and master leased rental housing. “Generally, what I’m seeing from the other districts is they want to control the inventory in the long term.”

GWSD Pathways director Chad Terry shared his perspective having previously worked as a principal in Telluride. “Housing is always the biggest obstacle. I’ve offered a lot of jobs that have been turned down because ultimately the person in the long run couldn’t find or afford housing,” he said. “It was beneficial for me as a principal in Telluride to have an option for teachers to have a landing spot while they got their feet on the ground.”

Terry also spoke about potential housing opportunities to pursue through GWSD’s architectural and construction trades programs. “In my perfect world, we’d be able to take students in the construction trades program and put them on site to build teacher housing. We would have a contractor in charge and a construction crew. It would be a great marriage between creating housing for teachers and have our kids involved in designing and building and learning about housing construction. We do have some land in Gunnison, it would be a great spot to create teacher housing.”

The board pondered whether it’s even the school district’s role to be in the housing business. “This is a national issue,” said board treasurer Dave Taylor. “To buy a home is less possible today than any time in our history, and it’s sad. Homeownership is fleeting right now for the middle class,” he said. “But all of these scenarios boil down to a business deal for the district or unknown future grants, and what is it going to cost per employee to build the housing?” 

Taylor also noted the “what about me?” attitudes that could follow. “As we’re looking at all of this, we are underestimating the conflict it will create by giving some teachers a stipend that somebody else didn’t get.” 

“Teachers would not be very happy if some got $500 a month and they didn’t,” agreed board member LeeAnn Mick. 

“I think there are some things we cannot do in this district because of the ‘what about me?’ question,” said Martineau. “If we took $1 million in our general fund and said that’s going toward building a house, then we would have a riot on our hands. That would be coming out of every teacher’s salary and that would not fly. But on the other hand, it seems like there are opportunities like grant funds and partnerships.”

The board asked superintendent Dr. Leslie Nichols if there was any “what about me?” sentiment with the school-owned duplex in Crested Butte. “Yes, there was some ‘what about me’ talk in those discussions, but I think we’ve succeeded in helping everyone understand that we make this move or we continue to function without enough bus drivers and food service workers, etc.,” she said.

She continued, “I believe the reason those other districts are a little bit ahead of us is because they experienced those drastic housing changes before us, and we’re on that same path. There’s no inventory right now and it’s not affordable. We either engage with housing opportunities or we no longer have teachers who move here and fill the vacancies. I worry as one of the largest employers of the valley that if we choose not to engage in the housing conversations that are occurring…our community might not feel good about Gunnison Watershed saying, ‘not our job.’ Yes, I didn’t get into education to get in the housing market, but it might be that we jump into this a little further than we have before.”

“We have the data now, what do we want to do about that?” said Williford, explaining that the next step is to create a high-level planning document that outlines a community housing plan. The plan will involve work sessions with board members and staff to define goals and strategies for employee housing and “put pen and paper around understanding our employee housing needs and the actions we want to take.”

“I think it’s really interesting and to hear what other districts have been able to accomplish, and I agree that housing is just going to continue to get more difficult for our employees,” said board member Anne Brookhart. 

“My vision of a plan is being open to learn about the economics of employee housing and if it’s even feasible for the school district to be involved,” said Taylor. 

“The district needs to be in a position to know how we can partner with others, how we can benefit from grants and other funding opportunities,” said Martineau. “I think it’s really essential that we take this step.”