Carissa Travis is an early bird. She’s usually at school by 6 a.m., two hours before her second-graders arrive, because she does her best work when the hallways of Denver’s Steele Elementary are quiet. She spends seven hours on her feet teaching and then sometimes several more after school in training sessions or PTA meetings.
When she gets home from what can be a 12-hour day, Travis needs some space. It’s one reason the 29-year-old was eager to buy her own home. She also wanted to leave behind the revolving roommates and rising rent that caused her to move four times in five years.
But she found her teacher’s salary didn’t go far in a gentrifying city where the median home price is now more than a half-million dollars. It’s a familiar problem that’s especially acute in Colorado, which a recent study ranked dead last among states for the competitiveness of its teacher salaries. The average Denver teacher earned $57,753 last year, according to the district.
Just as Travis was ready to give up, she got an email about a novel program called Landed that helps teachers buy homes in the communities where they work. In June, she became the first Denver teacher to seal a deal through it when she closed on a remodeled one-bedroom condo just a five-minute drive from her school. Hers was not the highest offer, but the previous owners liked her story.
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“They were excited to sell to a teacher,” Travis said.
Read more at Chalkbeat.
Chalkbeat Colorado is a nonprofit news organization covering education issues. For more, visit chalkbeat.org/co.
