Housing program targets teachers

Higher retention rates a goal of Steamboat effort

By Zach Fridell, Pilot&Today

Published September 28, 2008 at 8:43 p.m.

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A new cooperation between First Tracks at Wildhorse Meadows and the Steamboat Springs School District is attempting to create housing opportunities for school staff and increase teacher retention rates.

District Superintendent Shalee Cunningham said last week she is interested in creating housing opportunities to help district personnel and to keep young faculty and staff in Steamboat Springs longer.

"Whatever we can do to help retain not only our teachers, but all of our staff," she said. "Teacher retention and recruitment has been one of our goals. We have had a hard time keeping them."

To help create opportunities for teachers, Cunningham also has been in talks with Colorado Mountain College officials, who face many of the same issues. She is working with First Tracks, the affordable housing component of a development, to give teachers information.

First Tracks recently held an informational session at Steamboat Springs High School, but turnout was low, with about five district staffers expressing interest in deed-restricted housing.

First Tracks targets homeowners earning 80 percent to 120 percent of the area median income, but teachers - especially those new to the job - have a lower starting salary than that 80 percent target. While the AMI for a single homeowner is just above $42,000, according to district officials, the average teacher salary in the district is $41,000. The base salary for a new teacher just out of college is $32,900.

That doesn't mean teachers won't qualify for housing, said Mariana Ishida, development manager for First Tracks developer Resort Ventures West.

Potential homeowners still can qualify for the housing if they have an income lower than 80 percent of AMI, she said, as long as they can find a mortgage.

AMI is adjusted according to household size. Eighty percent of AMI for two people is $48,450.

First Tracks units range from $165,000 to $299,000.

• September 28, 2008

  10:22 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  JayRoy writes:

  I feel that housing is no less important to anybody else than it is to a school teacher. We all have to make our life choices, and plan ahead according to the income that comes with those choices. Are we entitled to buy a house that is above our means? No. Recent events are making that obvious.

• September 29, 2008

  6:59 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  lcs067 writes:

  Excuse me? Teachers are severely underpaid - that is the current situation. What are you proposing - that mountain kids teach themselves? Some people are meant to teach, and you should be thankful for it.

  Yes, it's about time mountain communities begin initiatives to keep workers. Not everybody can afford a multi-million dollar house, you know? Oh - that's right - some of us make the wrong "life choices."

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