{"id":460627,"date":"2026-09-11T15:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460627\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T15:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:08:15","slug":"welcome-home-applications-closing-soon-for-berkeley-school-districts-long-awaited-employee-housing-local-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460627\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Welcome home\u2019: Applications closing soon for Berkeley school district\u2019s long-awaited employee housing | Local Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rental applications will soon be due for apartment units at BUSD Workforce Housing, a new development which is set to offer<\/a> housing with preference for Berkeley Unified School District employees.\u00a0Applications opened April 15 and are due Sept. 11 at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

More than four years in the making, the development, also known as Catalyst, is located at 1717 San Pablo Ave. It will include approximately 110 units, with one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments available.\u00a0Construction at the site is expected to conclude January 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cRising housing costs, utilities, childcare and healthcare are major factors that make it hard to establish a career in Berkeley,\u201d said Berkeley Federation of Teachers President Matt Meyer in an email. \u201cOur members have moved further and further away which means we spend less time with students before and after the school day. This housing project will allow some of our members to live closer to where they work with more affordable rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Meyer, BUSD educators often struggle to find housing in the East Bay, which has negatively impacted employee retention and new educator application rates in the district.<\/p>\n

The district began to explore the demand for employee housing with an internal survey in 2017, which received responses from more than 60% of the district\u2019s workforce, according to a 2021 public statement from BUSD. Only 30% of surveyed BUSD employees said they lived in Berkeley. Seventy-eight percent of surveyed staff who were renters said the high cost of housing had resulted in financial pressures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was never a solution to the rising cost of health care and uncompetitive salaries,\u201d Meyer said in the email. \u201cThat being said, BUSD housing will provide stable housing and help some (of) our educators have more options to be able to remain in our district.\u201d<\/p>\n

All individuals whose household income is between 30% and 120% of the Area Median Income are eligible to apply.<\/p>\n

According to Jenny Wyant, the city\u2019s Health, Housing and Community Services program manager, BUSD employees will be preferred in the rental of all units, with first priority for district employees experiencing homelessness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once all applications received by the deadline have been entered into a lottery, the preferences will be considered, according to Eve Stewart, the senior vice president of real estate development for Satellite Affordable Housing Associates, one of the project\u2019s developers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really about helping more of our employees \u2014 many of whom are from Berkeley or who spend countless hours serving Berkeley students and families \u2014 be able to live where they work,\u201d said BUSD Board of Education President Ka\u2019Dijah Brown in a Sept. 2 board meeting. \u201cSo we wanted to say to those members of the BUSD family: Welcome home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city of Berkeley contributed $26.5 million in Measure O funds \u2014 a bond approved by Berkeley voters in 2018 to support affordable housing \u2014 to the BUSD development, according to Wyant.<\/p>\n

Wyant also noted that the total development cost for the project is approximately $77.7 million. She said the project\u2019s developers also leveraged funding from the California Housing Finance Agency and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of effort by BUSD and the unions and everybody that\u2019s been involved to make this happen,\u201d said Frank Hernandez, president of the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees, which represents school district employees. \u201cI would hope it\u2019s successful. We have definitely used it as a selling point to retain members, or retain employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

The developers for the project, Satellite Affordable Housing Associates and Abode Communities, were chosen by BUSD in 2021. Construction began June 2025 and, according to Stewart, is now approximately 90% complete.<\/p>\n

According to Hernandez, Berkeley Council of Classified Employees members have mostly voiced positive comments about the development, but he noted that \u201cyou\u2019re never going to have one solution that works for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, public education in California needs to be fully funded and we need salaries that will allow us to be able to raise families near where we work,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rental applications will soon be due for apartment units at BUSD Workforce Housing, a new development which is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[181641,181645,184,764,87682,46144,6765,181639,7,81031,181640,332,181646,96486,181643,181642,171546,181644,49125,110048,143,145,144,50259],"class_list":["post-460627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-1701-san-pablo-street","tag-abode-communities","tag-bay-area","tag-berkeley","tag-berkeley-council-of-classified-employees","tag-berkeley-federation-of-teachers","tag-berkeley-unified-school-district","tag-berkeley-workforce-housing","tag-california","tag-california-housing-finance-agency","tag-catalyst","tag-east-bay","tag-eve-stewart","tag-frank-hernandez","tag-housing-and-community-services","tag-jenny-wyant","tag-kadijah-brown","tag-low-income-housing-tax-credit","tag-matt-meyer","tag-measure-o","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-satellite-affordable-housing-associates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}