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The Mountain View Whisman School District is relinquishing its stake in a Palo Alto employee housing project due to low occupancy, with all but one of the district’s dozen units currently sitting vacant.
Mountain View Whisman’s school board voted unanimously last week to end its partnership with the Acacia, a 110-unit apartment complex at 231 Grant Ave. in Palo Alto. Back in 2023, the district purchased the rights to 12 apartments for $600,000, using money from the Measure T bond that voters approved in 2020. Now that the district has forfeited the units, it will get a full refund, Chief Business Officer Rebecca Westover told the board at an Aug. 20 meeting.
Spearheaded by former Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, multiple districts bought into the Acacia, including Palo Alto Unified, Los Altos, and Foothill-De Anza. It opened in summer 2025.
With Mountain View Whisman no longer participating, the Acacia can now lease the district’s former units to members of the public who meet income-eligibility criteria, Westover said. District employees can still apply to live there – they just won’t have priority, she added.
“The unit currently occupied by a MVWSD staff member is unaffected,” Westover said. “It turns over when the employee chooses to move.”
Declining staff interest
When the district first decided to invest in the Acacia, a staff survey showed high interest, according to Westover. Since then, the landscape has changed.
Mountain View Whisman opened its own 144-unit employee housing complex near the corner of Shoreline Boulevard and Middlefield Road in 2025. That project ran into problems of its own, with the district initially struggling to attract enough tenants.
However, after buying the land beneath the building and selling off 50 units to the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, Mountain View Whisman was able to lower its rents. Now, 93% of the district’s 73 units are occupied, Westover said.
Part of the challenge in finding Mountain View Whisman employees who want to move into the Acacia is that rents are lower in the district’s own complex, Westover said.
Currently, a one-bedroom apartment in the district’s complex rents for $1,550 to $2,220, depending on an employee’s household income. In the Acacia, one-bedrooms rent for between $2,015 and $2,707, according to Westover.
Superintendent Jeff Baier told the board that the rents at the Acacia were higher than at the district’s complex because the developer needed to meet its financing thresholds.
so it turns out that lack of housing isn’t a major factor in difficulty of hiring faculty? I assume these units are somewhat subsidized and no worse than market rate. What’s the problem? Is simply that teachers can’t afford to live here even with a subsidy? I don’t understand the economics here.
Low income/Subsidized housing appears to be a fallacy. That’s one of the reasons I am skeptical of any new housing development. No matter how many they build, “normal” people still can’t afford it. Only the developers make money, just waiting for enough high-income renters and lessees.
Is how it seems, anyway.
It’s a bit of a head scratcher. I think it seems the Palo Alto ones just aren’t cheap enough.
These are great units…the problem is you can rent for $300-$500/month going just 2 it’s south to MV. Several young new teachers have done just that.
And…who pays for these empty units? We taxpayers do, as Santa Clara County is on the hook for rental revenue shortfalls
I’m confused – are there two complexes, one they are pulling out of (The Acacia) and one MVWSD owns that is doing well? If that is correct, I hope The Voice will write another story highlighting the success of the other complex. I first read this article quickly and assumed all of their teacher housing was a failure. I bet others were left with the same impression from the headline. If that is not the case, I think it’s very important for The Voice to correct that impression. That’s why I subscribe – for clear, healthy, accurate local news – and I found this article confusing and disappointing in that regard
The Voice has written multiple articles about MVWSD’s complex on Shoreline.