More Montgomery County teachers are moving out of the county, according to data from teachers’ union leaders who say they are concerned about the availability of affordable housing in the county.
Union officials say 60 percent of teachers live inside the county, down from 69 percent during the previous year. Montgomery County Education Association leaders say when teachers live outside the county, education suffers.
“If you’re commuting an hour or so each way to work, that’s less time for students and parents, it’s harder to be there for after-school, evening or weekend activities, not to mention the time you waste in traffic or the added stress,” MCEA Executive Director Tom Israel said.
Del. Roger Manno, D-Montgomery, has proposed authorizing the Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development to purchase or negotiate home loans from commercial lenders to provide cheaper loans for Maryland teachers and first responders such as police, firefighters and emergency workers.
“There is this whole idea of community-oriented policing and community-oriented teaching,” Manno told The Examiner. “We want public employees to live in the communities they serve, which can be difficult, particularly in a place like Montgomery County where it is an ongoing challenge to try to find affordable housing.” The median price of a Montgomery County home was $425,500 last month, according to Rockville-based real estate tracker Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc.
Marvin Weinman, president of Montgomery County’s Taxpayers League, said given the state’s budget crunch, any money the state would spend on Manno’s home-loan program would be better spent elsewhere, adding that neither Montgomery schools nor fire and rescue services have difficulty filling open positions.
“The more money they make the more they are inclined to live outside Montgomery county,” Weinman said, pointing to 2007 figures that show nearly 80 percent of school service workers lived in Montgomery, compared to 69 percent of teachers and 65 percent of administrators.
Middle school science teacher Abby Hendrix said she and her husband, also a public school science teacher, would prefer to live in Montgomery County, but the only homes they could afford had “severe structural damage” so they bought in Howard County.
“Our choices were either to rent in Montgomery or look elsewhere,” Hendrix said. “We spend a lot of time in the car. We’re both science teachers and the environmental factors botherus, but it also makes us feel like we’re not a part of the community.”
