Before Melanie Turner joined Oakland’s Rooted program, she said she was house hopping and couch surfing while trying to afford housing in the city with her preschool-age son. Turner, a special education teacher, described the strain of living with the uncertainty of paying for rent and daily needs while working in education. She said the program offered a different arrangement: discounted housing for teachers and school staff housed in buildings across Oakland.
On Thursday, Turner spoke from the rooftop deck of a newly opened apartment building that the nonprofit Oakland Fund purchased to become affordable housing exclusively for educators as part of Rooted. Turner said she no longer had to worry about whether she could cover rent, groceries, medical bills, and commute costs, and she said she felt “at peace.” She also framed the program as more than financial relief, describing the benefit of being able to walk to work with her son and live in the same building as others in her school community.
Turner’s building is the first project of this kind in the country, according to the presentation around the launch: a nonprofit has acquired an existing property to convert it into subsidized housing for teachers. The Oakland Fund CEO, Kyra Mungia, said the organization, which Rooted is part of, wanted to take advantage of Oakland’s depressed real estate market and purchased The Idora in Temescal.
At a Thursday press conference, Mungia said the question was “who will own Oakland,” and she contrasted outside investors who might extract value with Oakland “stepping up and choosing to invest in itself.” Mayor Barbara Lee said the project mattered because it focused on continuing to invest in both housing and the people who make the city function, as well as on making sure children have the future they deserve.
Mungia and the organizers described the approach as a way to replicate the model so more teachers can live in the communities where they work. They noted that school districts across the Bay Area face recruitment and retention pressures tied to high local housing costs, and that some districts have turned to building workforce housing on district properties to keep educators from leaving. They also said that creating new housing can take years and require substantial money, while converting existing buildings can be faster—allowing new units to come online as tenants move out.
For The Idora, the Oakland Fund said it would begin renting units immediately as apartments become available through normal turnover. Mungia said the group raised $1.5 million from the Crankstart Foundation, with additional contributions from the Give Forward Foundation, Tipping Point Community, and PG&E. She said the nonprofit also received $7.6 million from the city’s Acquisition & Conversion to Affordable Housing fund and financed the remainder with a loan to buy the building for $12.6 million.
The Oakland Fund said eligible tenants include Oakland teachers, paraeducators, school staff, teacher residents, and people working with Oakland Unified School District long-term. The nonprofit said one-bedroom apartments would rent for $1,120 to $2,240 and two-bedroom units for $1,740 to $2,560, with rents capped at 30% of a tenant’s income. Leadership said it expects the housing to become 90% educator households within five years.
The Oakland Fund said acquiring The Idora fits into a three-year plan to eventually own 150 units in Oakland for educators to lease. It also pointed to teacher turnover reductions in other districts that have built workforce housing, and it said Oakland’s teacher retention is around 82%, with Rooted participants remaining in their jobs at a 93% year-to-year rate. Organizers also said Oakland Unified has attempted similar housing development on district properties, but construction delays have affected projects leased for affordable housing plans earlier.
At Emerson, Turner described how the arrangement made daily life easier for her and her son. She said another student at the school reacted with excitement—saying “Hi neighbor!”—after realizing the student lives in the same building as a teacher from her school. Turner said that kind of local familiarity helps start the day with a smile.