Denver, CO – In an innovative move to address the rising housing costs affecting educators, Grand Peaks, a local real estate investment firm, offers rent-free housing to ten early-career teachers. This initiative is part of the opening of the new 533-unit Skyline at Highlands, located at 2501 W. 26th Ave., Denver.
The Skyline at Highlands development, situated in the Jefferson Park neighborhood, will provide these teachers free accommodation from August through July. The project aims to support teachers struggling with housing affordability in a city where the average rent reached $1,875 a month in the first quarter of the year, according to the Apartment Association of Metro Denver.
Sara Hazel, President and CEO of the Denver Public Schools Foundation, highlighted the initiative’s selection process. From approximately 215 applicants, ten classroom teachers with zero to three years of experience were chosen through a random drawing.
“I had my Oprah moment sending emails to these 10 winners and sharing the wonderful news,” Hazel shared. “The responses were overwhelming: ‘This is life-changing for my family.’ ‘You have no idea how much this means to me.’”
Marc Swerdlow, President of Grand Peaks, explained the motivation behind the initiative. The Simpson family, founders of Grand Peaks and former students of Denver Public Schools, were moved by reports of teachers’ financial struggles and the difficulty in finding affordable housing.
“This property is not an affordable housing project, but providing affordable housing to teachers seemed so easy, so natural,” Swerdlow stated.
The donation includes five studio apartments, which typically rent for between $1,725 and $1,900 a month, and five one-bedroom units, which usually rent for $2,300 to $2,450 a month. With first-year Denver teachers earning an annual salary of $54,141, the rent-free accommodation offers significant financial relief.
Hazel hoped this initiative would inspire other companies to take similar steps. “Affordable housing is one of the barriers our Denver teachers face. Teachers living in the community benefit both Denver and our students. We hope other companies look at this and think, ‘Wow, how do we replicate this?’”
Denver Public Schools leaders have discussed efforts to provide teacher housing in the past but have not materialized. For instance, a 2018 proposal to convert the former Rosedale Elementary into rental apartments for teachers was abandoned after neighborhood opposition. The building was instead leased to the Archdiocese of Denver and now houses Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School.
This initiative by Grand Peaks represents a novel and impactful approach to supporting educators, with the potential to influence similar actions from other companies in the future.