Shortly before the end of the 2022 school year, Chandra Fles, an elementary school teacher in Traverse City, received a sudden eviction notice.

The house she was renting had been bought.

“I was faced with the difficult decision of whether I could continue my work as a teacher in Traverse City, where my own children attended school and where I had worked for over a decade,” she said Tuesday at an event at Blair Elementary School.

While she said she was lucky to find a new rental apartment, “the general cost of living continues to cause teachers and staff major problems in paying their salaries.”

The event was held to celebrate a new housing project specifically for school employees, the first of its kind in Michigan, which received $5 million from Michigan’s 2025 budget.

Fles was there to introduce Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had come north to present the project to local officials and school administrators.

The idea for this housing project was born out of a collaboration between four different educational institutions in Grand Traverse County, and the state funds to jumpstart the project received bipartisan support in Lansing.

Whitmer spoke on the playground of Blair Elementary, directly across from the proposed construction site, which is on land already owned by TCAPS – Traverse City Area Public Schools.

In her speech, she said that while the region is a popular tourist destination, it is the locals who keep Traverse City vibrant and dynamic.

“You make this place what it is, and you deserve to live here without ruining yourself,” she said.

And Whitmer told reporters that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to building affordable housing.

“We’re trying to move quickly and be creative,” she said.

Claire Keenan-Kurgan

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IPR News

The state funds will contribute to the first phase of the project, which will build 72 affordable, income-restricted, tenant-priority housing units for K-12 school employees. Some of the funding came from the budget of the Office of Rural Prosperity, which Whitmer created in 2022.

State Rep. Betsy Coffia (Democrat of Traverse City) was the project’s strongest supporter in the state legislature.

In an interview at the event, she said this project was just one way to alleviate the teacher shortage.

“It’s a much bigger puzzle,” she said. “Everyone has to pitch in: our private sector, our local government units and us as government partners.”

Republican Senator John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs) is also a big fan of this project – he advocated for it with the Republicans in Lansing.

“I wish I could get even more credit for it,” he said. “I was a big proponent of it in the Senate, but this was Betsy’s (Coffia’s) baby. There’s no doubt it was her top priority.”

This project could be a test case for whether workforce housing projects of this kind could work in other parts of the state.

Damoose said he has two places in mind – Beaver Island and Petoskey – that could use such a project because school districts also have trouble recruiting teachers due to a housing shortage.

And Damoose said local groups are also a key factor in the housing crisis.

Local governments “need to get serious about regulating short-term rentals, they need to get serious about zoning,” he said. “Companies that can’t find workers will have to invest in part in workforce housing.”

But overall, Damoose was excited to bring this project to life.

“This is how it’s supposed to work,” he said. “You hear so many good ideas and you wonder if they’ll ever be implemented. And this is one that’s actually being implemented.”