In the summer of 2025, Palo Alto is set to open an inaugural apartment complex located at 231 Grant Ave. featuring 110 units for educators and their families who meet income requirements. Supervisor Joe Simitian, a longtime Palo Alto resident, is representing the project. Educators within the Los Altos School District, Mountain View Whisman School District, Palo Alto Unified School District, Foothill-De Anza Community College District and San Mateo County school districts are eligible to live in the complex. Mercy Housing and Abode Communities are leading the construction and the planning, funded by a $25 million grant courtesy of Meta’s philanthropy funds, as well as private donors, County of Santa Clara funds and various loans.
Mercy Housing and Abode Communities are both non-profit organizations devoted to developing affordable housing. Mercy Housing, operating for over 35 years, is a more widespread company, operating in 41 states, in contrast to Abode Communities’ more localized focus of California. Abode Communities, founded in 1861, also has a more sustainable project approach, according to their website. Simitian, the driving force behind the project, was raised in Palo Alto and went to Palo Alto High School. With personal connections to both the city and its local education, he is a supporter of designated teacher housing.
“As a product of (PAUSD), and as someone who had a father who lived in Palo Alto, I went to school at Paly,” he said. “As a former school board member, I’m acutely aware of the fact that having teachers and other school staff live in the communities where they do their work is equitable in so many ways.”
In order to become a resident of this complex, educators must meet the criteria determined by the county and project team. The list of eligibility requirements includes the necessity of having one member of the family be a teacher within a County of Santa Clara or San Mateo public school and a household income between 60% and 140% of the Area Median Income for Santa Clara County. This income range was $76,140 to $177,660 in 2023, according to Abode Communities.
According to Simitian’s office, all participating school districts will have a form of lottery system conducted by Mercy Housing and Abode Communities, but the extent to which each school advertises and reaches out to teachers about the lottery will vary. The housing availability is split up across districts, with an allotted number of units for each one and one unit reserved for a property manager. PAUSD, which has over 800 teachers, will have 29 units, while the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District will only be granted 12 units. Simitian told Palo Alto Online that the reason PAUSD is allotted more units not only because the project is located in Palo Alto, but also because the district has been involved and showed interest.
Terri Baldwin, President of the Palo Alto Educators Association, has been a longtime advocate for increased teacher housing. “This complex will help some live closer to work and cut out long commutes,” she wrote in an email. Van Meter Williams Pollack is the architecture firm for the 231 Grant project, advising Cahill Contractors to complete construction. The apartment complex will have a variety of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units – accounting mostly for smaller families in order to provide housing for over 100 teachers. The apartment complex consists of 110 units spaced within two C-shaped buildings connected by an air bridge. The site area is 1.5 acres, and is located near California Avenue, one of Palo Alto’s shopping and restaurant districts.
According to the VMWP website, the building will feature eco-friendly aspects, such as the electric vehicle charging stations and photovoltaic panels. The C-shaped buildings, as well as the plazas, promote connection between residents. The plazas are accessible to the public, allowing residents to build relations with the rest of the community. This plan fosters an environment in which residents can conveniently engage with each other.
PAUSD long-term substitute teacher Julia Jacobsen has lived in Palo Alto since before she began working in the district, a fact which has strengthened her views on the housing program.
“(When) you live in the community, you feel invested in the community in a different way,” she said.
The project, proposed in January of 2018, was a product of many listening sessions and town hall meetings, consisting mostly of teachers. Multiple companies became involved in the project, beginning with Support Teacher Housing and Bay Area Forward — organizations devoted to the betterment of Silicon Valley. The project is estimated to cost around $90 million, a price significantly above the United States average cost of between $38.5 million and $77 million for a 110-unit apartment complex. However, this project is unique in its ownership — the land was already owned by Santa Clara County, previously home to the Santa Clara County Office of the Public Defender.
Construction for the project began in 2023, in response to the County of Santa Clara’s Request for Proposals, which, according to the proposal, hopes “to create a high-quality educator workforce housing development at a central location in Palo Alto.”
The new housing at 231 Grant Avenue was the solution to many long-standing problems for teachers. The affordability of the complex allows educators that cannot afford the steep prices of Palo Alto real estate to live in the area. Although travel costs may seem like an inconsequential issue to many, they can add up over time, furthering the wealth gap between educators who live close to their work versus those who commute from farther away. According to Baldwin, there are educators who live as far as Capitola, Morgan Hill and Dublin. These locations can be more than an hour away with traffic, creating a round trip commute that may take over two hours. Capitola, which is 43 miles away from Gunn, would require the use of an average of two gallons of gas. With the current average gas price at $4.427 in the U.S. — according to the American Automobile Association — this trip would cost almost $18 per day. Over a 180-day school year, this would cost $3,240 each year. This value adds a layer of inaccessibility to many teachers, especially those who are saving money for better housing. By creating educator housing, teachers will save thousands of dollars each year on gas prices just by taking a shorter commute to work.
“By definition, time spent commuting is time spent not working with or on behalf of students,” Simitian said. “I mean, folks are not only not on campus, but they can’t be working on their lesson plan or projects.”
While this project is the first of its kind, Simitian and many others hope it won’t be the last. The County of Santa Clara educator housing project serves as an example for future proposals to improve teachers’ quality of life and cost efficiency. “My hope is that this is just the beginning, and there is more to come,” Simitian said. “You can’t have great schools without great staff, and you can’t attract and retain great staff if there’s no place for them to call home.”
