School Districts Try to Help

In many parts of the U.S., young schoolteachers can’t afford housing costs. Rents are too high for what they earn.

Many young teachers live with roommates. Some find housing far from where they work. Others live in unsafe neighborhoods.

The housing problem is enough to make some young teachers quit. Now public officials are trying to find ways to solve the problem. Some school districts are planning to build low-cost teacher housing.

Esmeralda Jimenez teaches first grade. She is 26 years old. She lives in San Francisco, California.

5. Jimenez rents an apartment. It does not even have a separate room for her bed. Her rent is $1, 783 a month. That is 43 percent of what she earns. She lives in one of the city’s worst neighborhoods.

Jimenez tries to get home while it is still light out. Even then, she does out of her way to avoid some streets.

7. “If I lived in a better area, I wouldn’t feel so scared going home, ” she said, “I would be able to stay at school a little longer.”

Jimenez thinks about quitting teaching for better-paid work.

The problem isn’t limited to high-rent cities.

It’s in many cities, large and small, and in most parts of the country, ” said housing expert Stockton Williams.

There isn’t enough new housing for middle-income workers, he said.

More than 10 years ago, officials in Santa Clara, California, found a way to help teachers. They built 70 apartments between 2002 and 2009. They called the housing “Casa del Maestros.” That means “House of Teachers.” Only teachers can rent the units.

Katy Howser moved into one of the units nearly seven years ago. She was 23 years old. She had been living with her parents. She had college loans and credit card debt to pay off.

14. She is now married. She is about to have her first child. She and her husband rent a two- bedroom apartment. It costs $1, 700 per month. That’s at least $1, 000 less per month than other local two-bedrooms.

Howser has to move soon. Teachers can only live in the housing for seven years. She has been saving for a house.

She is thankful for Santa Clara’s investment in teachers. It’s what let her stay at her job.

If you can’t afford to live, you can’t afford to stay, ” she said.

Other school districts are trying to copy Santa Clara’s idea.

Voters in San Francisco and western Colorado agreed to help fund new, lower-cost housing for teachers. Districts in Texas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin are planning housing projects.

The projects are mostly small. They will only help some teachers. But officials hope each small effort adds up.

News for You, February 3, 2016

Indians Go Online to Buy Smelly Reminders of Their Childhood

India, some older people who live in cities miss life in the countryside. They miss the sounds, sights, and smells of their childhoods. They are going online to buy things that remind them of those times. That’s why dung cakes are selling like hotcakes over the Internet.

Dung cakes are small cakes of cow poop mixed with hay. They are mostly made by women in the countryside. The women dry the cakes in the sun. People use the cakes to burn in fires.

Online sellers like Amazon and eBay are getting orders for dung cakes. The orders mostly come from India’s cities.

It isn’t easy to buy the cakes in the city. But drying piles of cow dung can be seen everywhere in the Indian countryside.

Many older people grew up smelling dung-cake fires. Buying dung cakes online allows them to enjoy a smell from the past.

It remind them of the old days, ” said Radhika Agarwal. She works for ShopClues. It is a big online seller in India.

Many people in India belong to the Hindu religion. Cows are holy to Hindus. Dung cakes are often burned for Hindu rituals.

Sales have gone up around Hindu holidays. ShopClues sold all of its cakes near one big holiday.

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