LAUSD has between a 20-30% absentee rate every day. Its test scores have plummeted. In just one year another 11,000 fled the District. Sexual grooming is part of the curriculum. Bigotry is taught in every class—including math. Yet, with all these failures, LAUSD has decided to end it education priorities and turn to being a housing developer. When did schools in LA become builders and landlords? How much education money and stuff have been diverted to housing instead of learning?
“LAUSD’s vast real estate portfolio includes 21,000 buildings, adding up to more than 78 million square feet, across 10 square miles of land, according to an employee housing resolution submitted by School Board member Nick Melvoin in January.
A lot of that land, Melvoin argues, is underutilized. He points to closed schools and empty parking lots as examples.
“We’re one of the largest landowners in the county, and I find it a shame that we’re not better utilizing it for the benefit of our community,” he says.
Starting in 2009, LAUSD worked with housing developers to build three affordable housing complexes on district land. The first project was completed in 2015. There are currently 185 units available across the properties, located in Hollywood, Gardena, and near USC.
Henry Argueta works as a special education assistant at Wilton Place Elementary School. Photo by Robin Estrin.
Henry Argueta, who works as a special education assistant in Christine Marie Charlie’s classroom at Wilton Place Elementary School, applied for an affordable apartment in the Hollywood complex, called Selma Community Housing, in 2018.
At the time, he was deeply unhappy with his living situation. He says he was spending almost half his district salary on a studio in Westlake that functioned more like an oven, because it didn’t have air conditioning.
“I didn’t like it from day one, but that’s the only thing I could afford,” he says.
Argueta spent three years on the waiting list. In 2021, after an interview, he finally moved in.
The complex where he lives was built by the nonprofit affordable housing developer Abode Communities, in partnership with the school district, on what used to be a faculty parking lot for Selma Elementary School, which is across the street.
If the district has excess land and property maybe they should sell it and have money for education. Note in these articles the district gives the land and a developer builds. Nowhere does it say the district gets any money from the process? Are the sweetheart deals? We do not know because the details are not made public and the Times refuses to investigate. Is the public being ripped off? Is it the role of a government employer to assure the housing situation for its workers? Since when?
LAUSD builds for housing-insecure employees, but it’s not easy
By Robin Estrin, KCRW, 2/26/25 https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/kcrw-features/teacher-housing
Christine Marie Charlie commuted 31 miles each way to work for years.
Each weekday, she left her home in La Habra before sunrise to avoid the worst traffic, and drove to Wilton Place Elementary School in Koreatown, where she teaches special education to preschoolers.
At the end of the day, driving home would take three-and-a-half hours.
“It would be like driving in the fog,” she says. When stop-and-go traffic threatened to lull her to sleep, she’d call her husband and say, “Talk to me. Wake me up.”
Charlie is one of thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers and school staff struggling with the high cost of housing. The expense has resulted in long commutes and diminished quality of life for many employees, and made it difficult for the nation’s second-largest school district to recruit and retain staff.
According to a 2024 representative survey of district employees, including both teaching and non-teaching staff like classroom assistants, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers, nearly half are housing insecure (46%) or homeless (5%).
Further, 46% of employees reported that they are considering leaving their jobs with the district because of high housing costs.
The survey is a result of renewed interest in a years-long conversation about using LAUSD’s excess land to build affordable housing for employees.
It’s not such an unusual idea. In fact, the district has successfully done it before — at least on a small scale — and such housing has made an enormous difference in the lives of those lucky enough to live there. Now, the district is planning to do it again and asking difficult questions about who will qualify as new residents.
Charlie, who has taught in LAUSD for about two decades, looked for an apartment closer to the school but couldn’t find anything affordable.
Wilton Place Elementary is located near Hancock Park, an upscale area that’s home to the official residence of the Los Angeles mayor.
“Those houses are over $1 million,” Charlie says. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t put down a down payment on a house for $1 million..”
She briefly rented a single room in a house near USC. There, she says, she shared a bathroom with housemates, who sometimes walked in on her. She wasn’t allowed to use the kitchen.
“All it was, was a place to sleep,” she says. “I left right away — went to my sister’s house for a couple months.”
Since then, Charlie has moved to Inglewood, where she rents a room for about $1,200 a month. She still doesn’t have a kitchen, but she has her own bathroom and a coffee pot. Plus, her commute is much better. She says she can get to work in 25 minutes now, if she leaves before dawn.
This kind of housing crunch first led LAUSD officials to think about building units for their workforce more than a decade ago.
LAUSD’s vast real estate portfolio includes 21,000 buildings, adding up to more than 78 million square feet, across 10 square miles of land, according to an employee housing resolution submitted by School Board member Nick Melvoin in January.
A lot of that land, Melvoin argues, is underutilized. He points to closed schools and empty parking lots as examples.
“We’re one of the largest landowners in the county, and I find it a shame that we’re not better utilizing it for the benefit of our community,” he says.
Starting in 2009, LAUSD worked with housing developers to build three affordable housing complexes on district land. The first project was completed in 2015. There are currently 185 units available across the properties, located in Hollywood, Gardena, and near USC.
Henry Argueta works as a special education assistant at Wilton Place Elementary School. Photo by Robin Estrin.
Henry Argueta, who works as a special education assistant in Christine Marie Charlie’s classroom at Wilton Place Elementary School, applied for an affordable apartment in the Hollywood complex, called Selma Community Housing, in 2018.
At the time, he was deeply unhappy with his living situation. He says he was spending almost half his district salary on a studio in Westlake that functioned more like an oven, because it didn’t have air conditioning.
“I didn’t like it from day one, but that’s the only thing I could afford,” he says.
Argueta spent three years on the waiting list. In 2021, after an interview, he finally moved in.
The complex where he lives was built by the nonprofit affordable housing developer Abode Communities, in partnership with the school district, on what used to be a faculty parking lot for Selma Elementary School, which is across the street.
Abode Communities CEO Holly Benson says the building provides 66 units of multi-family affordable housing to people who are low- to extremely-low income, earning between 30 and 60% of the area median income.
Half of the units are earmarked for LA Unified School District employees, and those who work within a three-mile radius of the building are given further preference. The other half of the units in the building are open to anyone as long as their income is low enough to qualify.
Selma Community Housing has an after-school program room and computer lab. Many of the LAUSD employees who live there have children in the district. Photo by Jim Simmons Photography.
Argueta says his one-bedroom apartment costs about $1,400 a month. It’s a significant portion of his salary, but, he says, well worth it.
“I always had hopes that I would get out of that poverty and be able to live in a place like this — spacious, air conditioning, heater, parking on the bottom, safe,” he says. “It’s a dream come true for me.”
Now, after years of delays, which a district spokesperson chalked up to the COVID-19 pandemic, administrative changes in the district, and economic challenges around inflation, mortgage rates, and the cost of construction, officials have identified nine underutilized pieces of land — including a vacant lot in Woodland Hills, a medical building in Granada Hills, and a paved parking lot in West Adams — and formally identified developers who are interested in building affordable housing on that land.
But tough questions remain: Who will the district house?
Teachers like Christine Marie Charlie? Or lower-paid school staff like Henry Argueta? And should the district build housing for employees at all, when so many of its families are struggling with the same issue?
Homeless and housing-insecure families with children enrolled in the district were also surveyed by LA Unified. A majority indicated that housing costs are negatively impacting their child’s well-being and academic success, and expressed interest in affordable housing.
The district needs to decide who it wants to house before soliciting proposals from developers, because financing will depend on who lives in the housing.
For their part, the teachers’ union United Teachers Los Angeles is advocating for family housing as their priority, according to UTLA treasurer Gloria Martinez.
Max Arias, executive director of SEIU Local 99, the union representing non-teaching school staff, says that while the district’s intention to build housing in the future is “noble,” it should pay employees more in the meantime.
Meanwhile, the need for housing is high. The firm that conducted the districtwide housing survey estimates there’s demand for more than 25,000 units of affordable housing for employees and students whose families are homeless.
There are currently 7,000 school employees on waiting lists for the district’s 185 units.
