Daycare provider offers free housing for educators in New Haven

Yale architecture students are working around the clock to finish a house on Howard Street in New Haven.

“By talking to the teachers, we were really able to figure out how to create spaces that work for them on this site,” Yale architecture student Michael Brittenham said.

This fall, two Friends Center for Children educators will move into the house at no cost.

“When I first heard free rent, I was on board because that would relieve so much worry,” Friends Center for Children Assistant Teacher and current resident Paris Pierce said.

Pierce is one of four teachers who currently participates in Friends Center Teacher Housing Initiative, which allows staff members to apply for free housing.

“I get to buy more groceries, save a little bit of money,” Pierce described the benefits of the program. “[I am] working on my credit, I want to purchase a home one day.”

In partnership with the Yale School of Architecture’s Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, Friends Center is building the first of four houses on a two-acre land of property that was privately donated.

Two families will move into the newly constructed house and bring the total of teachers receiving free housing to six.

Each corner was designed with the needs of a family in mind.

“The mud room has a tremendous amount of storage for mothers and small children because we know that children have a lot of strollers, car seats,” Jim Vlock Building Project Director Adam Hopfner said.

Friends Center Director Allyx Schiavone said in 2020, the team came to the drawing board to find ways to increase educator salaries without having to pass the expense to parents.

“That led us to survey the teachers, to say ok what are your biggest expenses, because maybe we can take an expense away, as opposed to compensate you in salary because we just don't have the funds,” Schiavone said.

Of about 30 teachers, only one of them owned their own home, the childcare provider discovered.

“It became clear that if we could take away the rent cost for teachers, that we could increase their salary,” Schiavone said.

Eligible participants in the free housing initiative must be employed by Friends Center and must fall under the following categories: annual salary of $38,500 or less for a single adult, annual salary of $64,000 or less for one adult with children or annual household income of $79,000 or less for two adults with children.

The goal is to address poverty-level wages among educators and allow for upward mobility.

“They can work on saving for purchasing their own home, which is really the ultimate goal of the project,” Schiavone said.