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LAUSD Wants To Build More Affordable Housing For Teachers And Staff
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner (center) delivers remarks at a press conference on June 5, 2019, at Western Avenue Elementary School in South L.A., flanked by school board members Nick Melvoin (left) and Jackie Goldberg (center, back), Mayor Eric Garcetti (right).
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Kyle Stokes
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LAist
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The Los Angeles Unified School District will explore options to create more affordable housing for its teachers and staff.
This week, the school board approved a plan that grants $1.5 million to study how to make that housing happen, including possibly on unused LAUSD real estate.
L.A. Unified is the largest landowner in the greater L.A. area, according to Superintendent Austin Beutner. He said high housing costs and long commutes are keeping talented people out of LAUSD's talent pool.
"This critical effort will create 2,000 units of affordable workforce housing, which will help recruit the next generation of teachers and school staff, and allow them to live in the community they serve," Beutner said.
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The district previously worked with developers on three projects where employees received renting priority: one on the Gardena High School campus, another near the Selma Avenue Elementary campus in Hollywood and a third near Norwood Street Elementary in University Park.
But reports in 2016 found a hiccup with some of those properties: because of the federal subsidies used to build them, teachers made too much to qualify for the housing, though district support staff did qualify.
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