Many cities and towns are facing serious shortages of workers in important fields that include teaching, firefighting, and crime fighting. Finding alternative approaches to recruiting and retaining qualified professionals is a high priority in all municipalities, but especially in low-income communities.
One way policymakers are making a dent in the problem is by offering housing loans and grants to attract and keep employees in highly competitive fields.
Different plans in different cities include incentives, such as zero-interest loans and discount prices on government-owned houses and apartments. Recently, states have been following this example, supporting urban school districts using innovative ways to attract qualified teachers to schools serving disadvantaged students. For ideas on developing these teacher incentives, policymakers should consider the diversity of programs in cities such as Baltimore, Los Angeles and San Jose, Calif., and states including California, Connecticut, and Mississippi.
Former San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales created an innovative model well worth replicating. His Teacher Homebuyer Program (THP) is a multi-pronged plan for teacher housing, including rehabilitation financing for the purchase of fixer-uppers (with deferred payments on loans up to $65,000 depending on your income); realtor/lender incentives for agents who assist those buying low-end housing (3 percent of a home's purchase price for help selling a home and 1 percent for help obtaining financing); and bridge financing so home buyers have cash to be competitive during the crucial bidding, down payment, and closing phases of the sale. The city also recommends that third party real estate service providers be utilized to assist in the administration of the THP program. These benefits are made possible with a combination of state and local allocations, mostly stemming from the state.
State and local policymakers can also look to the federal government for ideas on attracting teachers with home buying incentives. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) "Teacher Next Door" program has helped more than 4,000 teachers buy homes by making housing available at 50 percent discounts with very low down payments. To qualify, teachers must live in the same district as they teach and agree to keep the home as their principal residence for at least three years.
Helping teachers buy homes in the district where they teach also helps create a connection with the community, encouraging teachers to remain committed to schools that are hard to staff. In addition, aid with housing costs enables many more people to teach at the salaries offered in urban districts. Teacher home buying incentives add value for everybody.
Similar efforts to retain dedicated police officers have succeeded in cities like St. Petersburg, Fla. The city council there expanded an initiative known as Police In Neighborhoods (PIN), aiming to recruit new police officers, retain current ones, and encourage as many as possible to live in the city they serve.
The PIN program offers a substantial loan of up to $14,000 for members of the St. Petersburg Police Department to purchase a home within the city. For those already residing within city limits, the $14,000 may be used to match personal funds for renovation projects within existing homes. The interest rate for these loans is 0 percent. Moreover, for every year after receiving the loan that an officer stays with the department, $2,000 is forgiven, so that the entire debt can be wiped out after seven years of service.
Of course, the terms of the loan are not the sort that you would find at your local bank; the city does not benefit in direct financial terms from the program. But like San Jose's Teacher Loans, the program makes great sense on multiple levels. First, it helps the city remain competitive in recruiting police officers. Offering a tangible benefit to potential new officers, many concerned about settling themselves in a new community, is one way to make St. Petersburg more attractive than other suitors.
Second, the loans' generous forgiveness terms aim to keep officers in the department. Traditionally, in cities across the nation, most officers leave police departments within the first five years of joining, lured away again and again by other communities. The PIN program aims to reverse this trend by rewarding officers' long-term commitment to the department and the city. Officers who see St. Petersburg investing in them, Kriseman says, feel a greater sense of appreciation and duty to the city in return.
Finally, it is hard to underestimate the benefits of bringing officers' homes into the city itself. Too often, police are seen as enforcers who arrive after a crime has been committed and leave town at the end of the day. The phenomenally successful "community policing strategy" that helped reduce crime rates across the country during the 1990s places a high priority on making officers an integral part of the communities they are protecting (see the "Community-Based Crime-Fighting Play"). Most obviously, that means changing the way police officers work -- getting out of their patrol cars, walking a beat, making contacts, and attending community meetings and events. But, as St. Petersburg is showing, the community-police nexus can be strengthened by how officers live as well: as visible and invested members of the community.
San Jose Teacher Housing Program
http://www.sjmayor.org/event_library/new_website/
teacherhomebuyerintro.html
Kelly Virella, "Detective Takes Out Program's First Loan," St. Petersburg Times, September 3, 2003
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access/
394463951.html?dids=394463951:394463951&FMT=FT
New Dem of the Week: Rick Kriseman, Democratic Leadership Council, January 6, 2004
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=252305
&kaid=104&subid=117
"Idea of the Week: Homes for Inner-City Teachers," DLC, March 20, 2000
www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=110&subid=135&contentid=422
Honorable Richard Kriseman
State Representative
Florida House of Representatives
Suite 203
1700 66th Street N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33710-5510
(727) 552-1380
C. Ray Nagin
Mayor of New Orleans
1300 Perdido Street, Room 2E04
New Orleans, LA 70112
(504) 658-4900
(504) 658-4938 (fax)
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