San Francisco

Teachers Struggle With High Rent, Low Pay in San Francisco

Teachers are leaving in droves and taking their teaching credentials to places where they can afford to live.

Lita Blanc, the president of the United Educators of San Francisco said the combination of low pay and high rent is reaching a crisis level for teachers struggling to live in the city.

Teachers are now leaving in droves and taking their teaching credentials to places where they can afford to live, according to Blanc.

"It's an emergency. You need emergency funding, you need to reorganize your priorities and you need to do it now," Blanc said. "Barely a week has gone by without me hearing stories of people being evicted."

The average salary for a teacher in San Francisco is almost $64,000. In July, that will increase to around $66,000.

Teacher Rebecca Sheehan-Stross said she never went into education for the money, but she also did not go into it thinking she would make so little she could not afford a bedroom.

Sheehan-Stross has a masters degree in education and earns $55,000 annually, paying $1,200 a month in rent in Oakland. She commutes an hour each way to teach at Cesar Chavez Elementary in San Francisco.

"Almost impossible to live here and be a teacher," Sheehan-Stross said of San Francisco.

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