Corrie Traynor, Placer County and California State Teacher of the Year 2016-2017

I live in Roseville but I cannot afford to buy a home here. My rent is very high yet I love Roseville and I want to live in or close to the community where my friends are and where I work. I’ve been going through this for several years now—waiting for the housing prices to drop or for more affordable homes to be built. I understand the need personally and I understand it professionally.

There are choices for people to make; either live outside of the area that you work, outside of the county—or bite the bullet, stay in the area and do without some other things so you can afford to pay much higher rent than you’d like. I’m currently one of the latter. My current rent is high for what I’m getting and I was trying last summer to rent a home here, but I found that trying to get into a home is ridiculous. I was told they require you to have up to four times as much monthly income for what your monthly payment will be. That’s hard to make for a lot of people.

I’m fine where I am at the moment, but to be able to buy a home would be a real stretch for me—even with having the money available to put down on a home, I don’t want to be paying an exorbitant monthly payment. I have a co-worker that teaches in the district who has been trying to buy a home in Roseville but had to end up buying out of the county because he couldn’t afford it here. I hear this sort of story often.

When it comes to the educational standpoint, parents want their children to be in a good school district. They want their kids to go to safe schools. They want the best for their children. Unfortunately, they’re being priced out and often can’t find a home they can afford here.

We have many families where they are living in combined family households—two or more families living together or with extended family—so they can afford to live here. We have many working families that are struggling with having to bring in other renters, other family members or two families living together so that they can afford to live here.

If I had to guess at a number, I’d say somewhere around 25% of our kids are in that kind of situation. In general this living situation affects some of these students performance in school; mainly because they are not getting enough sleep or not getting restful sleep. Many of these students share rooms with several others or they don’t have a room and they sleep on a couch.