New Haven-based Friends Center for Children is celebrating the formal opening Thursday of the nation's first free teacher housing village. The project is designed to help address the financial pressures facing early childhood educators, whose wages often make it difficult to afford housing.
“This is just an amazing moment for us as an organization, and for me personally to see early care and education teachers have access to free housing,” said FCFC CEO Allyx Schiavone. “It's just words cannot express how happy I am for this opportunity.”
Friends Center for Children is a nonprofit early childhood education provider that operates child care centers for young children and works to make quality care accessible to families while supporting the educators who provide it.
A different way to raise compensation
The village includes five homes, one purchased by Friends Center for Children and four built in partnership with the Yale School of Architecture. The homes were constructed over four years, with one built each year.
Eight teachers live in the village. Across New Haven, the organization has provided housing to 13 early childhood educators. Since the initiative began in 2021, 37 New Haven residents, including families, have received housing through the program.
Teachers do not pay rent, although they are responsible for utilities. Friends Center covers property taxes and maintenance.
Schiavone said the housing benefit saves an early childhood educator an average of about $23,000 a year. That can substantially increase the value of a teacher's compensation without requiring the nonprofit to raise tuition or find enough additional money to provide equivalent salary increases.
Friends Center already pays an average salary of more than $50,000, Schiavone said, compared with a statewide average of about $34,600 for early childhood educators. She said the organization wants to pay teachers more but faces limits on what it can afford without raising tuition or receiving additional public funding.
Besides providing housing, the FCFC program also pairs teachers with financial mentors who help them pay down debt, repair credit and save toward buying a home of their own.
Housing can change more than a paycheck
Schiavone said the impact of stable, rent-free housing can extend well beyond a teacher's monthly budget. With housing costs reduced, educators can address other financial needs, including medical and dental care, glasses for their children, reliable transportation and regular bills.
“The first thing is generally a car, and then the ultimate goal of the program is that they're going to buy their own house,” Schiavone said.
The village homes are designed to be efficient and comfortable, and their locations near early childhood education centers allow teachers to walk to work. Schiavone said that matters because many educators do not have cars.
Plans to expand the model
Friends Center plans to have 24 housing units by 2028. It has also purchased property for a second teacher housing village, which is expected to add 11 more units.
Schiavone said the organization sees the housing model as a way to strengthen teacher compensation while making better use of its resources over time.
“We're really spending money once, and then we are getting an annual return,” she said.
The organization estimates that the 24-unit plan will cost just under $4 million. Schiavone said the homes can generate substantial annual savings by reducing the amount of money the nonprofit would otherwise need to spend annually to provide comparable compensation. The model depends on an upfront investment, along with ongoing costs for taxes, maintenance and other expenses.
Friends Center is also working with partners in other states to explore similar approaches. In Battle Creek, Michigan, Schiavone said, the organization is working with the city on a plan to provide free housing to 30% of early childhood educators.
She said the long-term goal is to make housing assistance available to educators across the early childhood education sector, not just those employed by Friends Center.
A broader affordability challenge
According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, 43% of Connecticut's early childhood educators rely on public benefits to make ends meet. Low wages and high housing costs make it difficult for many of the people caring for America’s youngest children to afford a place to live.
Schiavone said families who cannot find affordable early childhood education may be unable to work, while educators themselves struggle to remain in a field where compensation often fails to keep pace with living costs.
Schiavone said state leaders recognize universal early care and education as a goal, but Connecticut remains far from having the funding needed to achieve it. She believes housing investments could help the state make progress while reducing the need for continuing public spending on salary increases.
“There is no reason why this should not be part of our solution to these national crises,” Schiavone said.
