‘The start of a movement’: A look inside Palo Alto’s educator housing 

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Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian’s father was both a teacher in Palo Alto and a Palo Alto resident. It was an experience, one that is less common today, that he says deepened their sense of community. 

“I saw firsthand as we walked the streets of Palo Alto and bumped into friends, families, kids that he was teaching at the time,” Simitian said at a tour Thursday morning that welcomed local city and school officials to Palo Alto’s newest teacher housing, a 110-unit building at 231 Grant Ave. that’s been in the works since 2018.

It will offer a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units and is set to welcome its new tenants by the summer of 2025. 

At its simplest, the project will help cut down on commute times and the city’s housing shortage, but at its most complex, Simitian hopes the project can help save lives, he said from a podium in the unfinished “community space” of the building. 

With educators immersed in their communities, less tired and ready to spare an extra 15 minutes with their students, kids can feel more connected to school staff – and vice versa – he said. 

Kelly Hollywood, associate director of Mercy Housing – one of the developers working on the project – presented Simitian with an award “for his deep commitment to equitable housing,” then geared up to lead the tour. 

With the building 65% complete and construction actively underway, local officials put on their hard hats and started on the first floor, which features a lobby, retail space that is pending a business, bike and personal storage and meeting rooms. 

The building is entirely electric, Hollywood said, and each unit will come with a parking spot, organized by “parking stackers,” an elevator system used to store cars more efficiently. 

From the lobby, attendees were able to tour a one-bedroom model, which is 535 sq ft. and was equipped with a full kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom – all first-floor units will also include an outdoor patio space. 

Studios, which are 376 sq ft. each, and-single bedroom units do not come with washer and dryer hookups, but there will be laundry rooms on the second, third and fourth floors, Hollywood said. 

There are three large courtyards on the second floor, each with a different purpose. One is meant to be more social, equipped with barbecue areas; the second central courtyard is an active space, which will have a playground and a dog run; and the third is a “passive” courtyard with gardening plots. 

The two-bedroom units, at 814 sq ft. each, have slightly bigger living rooms and laundry hookups, but have a similar layout to the one-bedroom. 

The building will be divided between educators and school staff from the Palo Alto Unified School District, Los Altos School District, Mountain View Whisman School District, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District and some San Mateo County school districts like Ravenswood and Sequoia. 

Based on proximity and priority, Palo Alto Unified is set to acquire 29 units, Los Altos 24 units, Mountain View Whisman and Foothill-De Anza will each get 12, San Mateo County school districts are slated for 32 units total and one will be set aside for the building manager.

Accommodations will be offered to employees who make 60 to 140% of the area median income, or near-average income in the area, and each unit’s rent is dependent on the number of residents and income amount. 

Santa Clara County donated the land and $6 million to the project, which is funded by various other entities like the city of Palo Alto, which gave $3 million, the school districts, which are being asked to pitch in $50,000 per unit for their educators and nonprofit developers Mercy Housing and Abode Communities. Meta, previously Facebook, pitched in $25 million for south San Mateo County school districts. 

Educator housing is a newer strategy in the effort to improve teacher retention and learning, and Simitian called this project the “start of a movement,” to which state officials agreed. 

Richard Barrera, who sits on the San Diego Unified school board, attended Palo Alto’s tour event to represent the California Department of Education and pass down the state superintendent’s excitement for the teacher housing movement. 

“We heard about this and needed to come up,” he said. 

What makes the Grant Ave. housing unique among around 100 of other state projects, Barrera said, is its collaboration with the county, multiple school districts and tech giant Meta. 

“It mythbusts the idea that it would be a financial hardship to build teacher housing,” said Liz Sanders, director of communications for the California Department of Education.

According to a study, California schools own 75,000 acres of surplus land, Sanders said, creating the potential to build 2.3 million units of housing, and Palo Alto’s development is just a step in that direction. 

Teri Baldwin, president of the Palo Alto Educators Association – the local teacher’s union –  was “so happy,” to see the project coming to fruition. 

She recalled living a block from her schools in Palo Alto, when she was able to attend more school events and “be there for her students.” This project will do the same for the teachers who move in, she said. 

Units will be open for registration later this year and updates are posted on the project’s website. 

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