A Public School Teacher on Trying to Raise a Family in San Francisco

The Bay City Beacon sat down with lifelong San Franciscan, public school teacher, and father of three, Trevor McNeil, to talk about what it's like to try and live in the city on a middle-class income. McNeil describes his family as living "on the knife edge," earning just a little too much to qualify for a housing subsidy. Talking about searching for a home, McNeil had plenty of frustrations, "[It’s] crazy that in the housing debate there’s this notion that somehow families want only stand-alone single family homes. Give us more credit than that. Families who want to stay in the city don't care…[yet] so much of the city is single-family homes. If somebody said, ‘we give you a grace period, if you want to build an extra floor in your house,’ a hundred percent of them would do it because they all have family members, or could use the extra rent," McNeil told Armand Domalewski.

Some questioned if building housing for the middle class is even an issue for the city, something McNeil found strange. "One thing some people say about teachers is ‘they chose to have a career that’s less paying,’ except that people still need teachers, and it’s a public benefit to having teachers living in your neighborhood, who know your kids," McNeil told Armand Domalewski.