Arizona is developing a “Tiny House” craze to simultaneously address ongoing educator and housing shortages.
Arizona, like the rest of the country, struggles to hire and retain public school educators and to provide an adequate inventory of affordable housing for those educators and other residents. there isand creative effort To address both issues at once, one school district is using federal funding to build “tiny homes” to attract and house potential educators.
Arizona’s Chino Valley Unified School District is using federal funding to build 10 small home studio units (400 square feet each) in a vacant lot behind an elementary school in a school district less than a five-minute commute. His $500,000 grant from Coconino and Yavapai county educational services agencies.
Teachers occupying this unit only pay about $550 per month, well below market rents. The tiny one-room home, due to be completed by early fall of this year, is designed “as a temporary home and a way to attract more educators to the school than elsewhere in the country.”
local news outlets Fox10 Phoenix Reported on the growing educator and housing crisis in the region:
Chino Valley, a small town more than 100 miles north of Phoenix, has also been affected by the rise. house and rent price. Pay alone is not enough, especially for teachers in school districts.
The average Chino Valley home price is over $400,000.
…
he [the district superintendent] He explains that the district’s teacher turnover rate is about 15 to 25 percent each year, which is why the district has devised this unique way to address the shortage.
Notably, local school superintendent John Scholl has also incorporated public works infrastructure into the district’s small home plans, raising concerns in MACo County and Maryland over housing developments. “In addition to 10 small homes, sewerage, electrical infrastructure, firebreaks, etc. are all part of the project,” Scholl said.
