What is TRiO Plus?

We are building a coalition of public and private community stakeholders to ensure teachers of color can afford to live in the cities they teach and our kids stop paying the price for our broken housing system.

Our Mission

TRiO Plus advances educational equity by improving housing affordability for Oakland teachers. 

Our collaborating landlords offer exclusive, discounted apartments to pre-screened Oakland teachers to bridge the affordability gap.

Our Vision

We are building an Affordable Housing Marketplace that can improve student performance by giving educators a chance to live in the communities where they teach. Our students need teachers who reflect their own diversity and life experiences; Research shows that students perform better when their teachers look like them and share life experiences. TRiO Plus aims to improve recruitment and retention of Black, Latine, and other teachers of color by addressing a major barrier-to-entry and the number one push-factor once employed, thereby working to improve outcomes for Oakland’s diverse student population.

What is TRiO?

TRiO Plus is the growth strategy for Teachers Rooted in Oakland, or TRiO. Teachers Rooted in Oakland is where it all started. 

Developed in 2020 by the Oakland Mayor’s Office in collaboration with philanthropic partners and property owners, TRiO aims to improve recruitment and retention of teachers of color in hard-to-staff subject areas in Oakland’s Teacher Residency Program and other early career teachers by making housing more affordable for these pillars of our community.

TRiO matches teachers with collaborating landlords to secure discounted apartments, further supported by philanthropically funded housing stipends. The ongoing TRiO pilot is expected to support over 100 Oakland teachers in hard-to-staff subjects like STEM and Special Education over nine years. 

TRiO participants enter the program as Teacher Residents, who earn their credential while training with an accomplished mentor teacher. Research shows that teachers trained through a residency model both stay longer in the classroom and are more effective teachers.

Unfortunately, teacher residents only receive a $15,000 per year state-funded stipend. As such, cost of living is a huge barrier of entry for any aspiring teacher, but particularly for teachers of color who often have additional burdens or do not have generational wealth to rely on. TRiO’s subsidy program further supports Teacher Residents by offering a monthly housing subsidy up to $1,500 and through partnerships with landlords and preferential access to discounted Oakland apartments. 

As fully credentialed teachers, participants then receive an additional four years of support via a $500 per month housing stipend, provided they remain an OUSD teacher. Through our nonprofit partner Community Development Finance, we also offer teachers financial coaching, education and low-cost financial services.

Our Funding partners include: the State of California, Bank of America, the Akonadi Foundation, Tipping Point, The California Endowment, the LSP Family Foundation, the Teachers Housing Cooperative, the Hellman Foundation, Rogers Family Foundation, and an Anonymous donor.