GILROY
– Before entering their brand new home on the north end of
Church Street, Sean and Mandy Reedy slip white plastic booties over
their shoes. It’s the first time they will get a chance to see
their home’s interior much as it will look when they move in three
weeks from now.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Before entering their brand new home on the north end of Church Street, Sean and Mandy Reedy slip white plastic booties over their shoes. It’s the first time they will get a chance to see their home’s interior much as it will look when they move in three weeks from now.
The last time they visited, the warm, dark beige carpet wasn’t installed and Mandy was eager to see how it looked next to the flooring and marble countertops.
The Reedys are one of only three success stories in this city’s first teacher housing program. South County Housing, the area’s premiere affordable housing provider, along with Gilroy Unified School District and the City of Gilroy, originally sought to help as many as 12 local teachers or city employees purchase a home in Gilroy, where the average home costs $607,000.
The only drawback for the Reedys is that the sale will take until Aug. 25 to go through.
“We’re supposed to move in on the same day that we report back to work,” Mandy Reedy said.
The couple will start their fourth year teaching in Gilroy this month – he at South Valley Middle School, she at Rod Kelley Elementary. Having moved here from San Luis Obispo, they were considering relocating to California’s central valley, where homes are more affordable.
“I was discouraged, until they were putting the programs together to help teachers,” said Sean Reedy, 28. “I figured (owning a home) was far off in the future.”
“He kept saying, ‘It’ll never happen’,” said Mandy, 26.
Two other GUSD teachers will be purchasing a home in the “La Maestra,” or “teacher,” development at Church Street and Trimble Court. One city employee also is participating in the program, although that buyer will not receive a financial contribution from the school district.
South County Housing had advertised 12 homes, priced between $440,000 and $448,000, to teachers.
“La Maestra was a pilot program,” said Nancy Wright, senior project manager with South County Housing. “We had already designed the units and we knew we were going to have them on the low end of market rate, but still market rate.”
The plan was to combine state no- or low-interest loans with a $5,000 grant from GUSD and a $30,000 loan from the city.
“We originally thought there were going to be more programs that you can layer with some of the other programs the state has,” Wright said. “It turned out, they are not compatible with each other.”
As it worked out, even with a total $75,000 in financial assistance and decreased debt, the market-rate homes were not affordable to many teachers.
“That meant, because of the pay scale, that it had to be two incomes, and people were really disappointed, I think, those that didn’t make it,” Wright said.
For the Reedys, though, and others who did make it, it’s time to start planning what pieces of furniture will go where in the 1,588-square-foot home. Mandy Reedy already knows what she’ll do with each of the four bedrooms. One will be set up for a massage business she plans to start, another will be an office and the third could be a child’s bedroom, in the future.
The white and blue house has a bigger backyard than many new homes in Gilroy, which the Reedys say will be perfect because they want to get a dog.
Meanwhile, South County Housing plans to offer more teacher housing, only this time it will be affordable to single teachers, many of whom showed interest in the La Maestra houses before discovering they couldn’t afford them.
“In the many conversations we’ve had with single teachers, there are a significant number of them … with no kids … and they want to buy, but they don’t really want a family house,” Wright said.
The answer may be found in the cannery site, which South County Housing is currently designing to provide both low-income and market-rate housing.
“We were trying to tailor units so we could have something affordable, either by design or by the way we can average out the costs versus the revenues,” Wright said. “Here, if we were building 200 units, we have more opportunities to have affordable houses.”
Although still in the preliminary stages, Wright said South County Housing is looking at small, 2-bedroom units that would likely cost between $250,000 and $300,000.
“At that price, with someone who’s making $40,000 – especially if the city kicks in with their program – that’s serious now,” Wright said.
Marilyn Roaf, the city’s housing and community development coordinator, said now that the city has an affordable housing loan program set up for teachers and city employees, it will look into continuing and expanding its support.
“We have to look at our budget to see if we can provide increased assistance,” Roaf said. “The idea is that it would be for any housing in Gilroy, but we certainly would welcome projects that would offer a partnership in reducing the cost of the housing.”
