The state Department of Education is poised to get into the housing business, to pitch in to ease the chronic shortage of housing, which has become California’s top economic, social and political issue.
To that end, state schools chief Tony Thurmond plans to launch a statewide plan to develop millions of new housing units on land owned by California school districts.
He will announce the plan during a 10 a.m. Tuesday press conference at DOE headquarters in Sacramento, where he will be joined by local and state leaders with experience of building housing on land owned by school districts.
Following Tuesday’s press conference, Thurmond will convene a panel of housing experts at a housing summit on Aug. 14 to identify policy recommendations that can to boost housing development throughout the state, including housing that meets the needs of families in lower-income brackets.
California school districts — also called “local education agencies” in DOE parlance — own 75,000 acres of developable land, enough to create an estimated 2.3 million new housing units throughout the state, according to department officials.