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Teachers Can’t Afford to Live in Communities Where They Teach

Greenwich now hires teachers starting at about $40,000, Zammit said, and that’s not nearly enough to qualify for even a median-priced condo in the town, which now sells for more than $640,000 — up 23.8% from more than $522,000 last year.

A median-priced house now sells for more than $1 million, she said.

“None of our salaries are going up at that pace,” said Zammit. “We’re getting a 3.8% salary increase this year and that’s the biggest in 10 years, but housing is up 31%. There’s no way our teachers can keep up with that kind of inflation.”

Zammit rented an apartment in Stamford when she first became a school teacher in Greenwich in 1969. She bought her home at an insider’s price of $57,000 in 1985 when her building was converted, and then sold that apartment in 1995 for $74,000. Last month, that unit sold for $200,000.

An inheritance enabled her to move with her husband into a $175,000 condominium in 1995. It is now appraised at $362,000, and it would be beyond her reach today if she had to rely solely upon her salary of $83,000, which is about the most a public school teacher can make in Greenwich.

“It is almost impossible to keep” the 400 new teachers coming into the system, said Zammit. Their only alternative close to where they work is to share housing with roommates; otherwise they have to find housing up the coastline, which is the only recourse for those who are starting families.

A commute that takes 20 minutes if you leave at 6 a.m. when there is no traffic can take two to two-and-a-half hours on a bad day, she said.

Consequently, teachers don’t like to stick around to provide extra work for their students or to share their participation in concerts and baseball games. The three times a week they are required to stay after school for open house already cut substantially into the time they have to spend with their families at home.

“Anything that can be done to bring affordable housing into places like Greenwich would do a lot to improve the school systems in this country,” she said.

Zammit said that the board of education is aware of the problem and wants to correct it to stop teachers from coming and going, but it “can’t seem to make the town as aware of these issues as we would like.”

She added that, “Teachers would very much like to live in the communities in which they teach.”

The Workforce Housing Symposium was presented by the Homeownership Alliance as part of National Homeownership Month activities being held around the country.

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