Somewhere in Colorado's mountain resort corridor, teachers are commuting 60 miles each way, sleeping in cars, or simply quitting. A local government is now moving to build housing specifically for the educators and school workers its community depends on but can no longer afford to keep.
The jurisdiction, listed on the Rocky Mountain Bid System, is seeking a developer to build what it calls "attainable" educator and staffing housing. The project is designed for teachers, bus drivers, custodians, paraprofessionals, food service workers and others whose jobs make schools run but whose salaries offer no foothold in markets where median home prices regularly top $800,000 to $1.5 million.
The specific jurisdiction was not identified in the solicitation's public metadata, but the framing is unmistakable. Colorado's high-country resort communities, places like Summit County, Eagle County, Aspen, Steamboat Springs and Telluride, have watched housing costs roughly double since 2020, when a wave of remote workers and second-home buyers flooded the market. A teacher earning $45,000 to $60,000 simply cannot compete. The result in many districts has been unfilled classrooms, mid-year resignations and administrators fielding calls from staff wondering whether they can keep living in the community at all.
The term "attainable" rather than "affordable" signals the project's target: households earning roughly 80 to 140 percent of area median income. That's above the threshold for traditional subsidized housing but still out of reach in resort markets, where even moderate incomes leave workers financially squeezed.
Colorado has been building toward this moment for years. Voters passed Proposition 123 in 2022, dedicating state revenue to workforce housing. The legislature followed in 2023 with a law explicitly allowing school districts to build housing on district-owned land. Eagle County, Summit County and Aspen have already completed or partnered on educator housing projects, and this solicitation appears to represent the next wave of that effort, with local government rather than the district itself taking the lead.
The inclusion of "staffing" alongside educators is notable. Paraprofessionals and support workers often face steeper affordability gaps than teachers, yet they're rarely the focus of housing conversations. Their presence in this project signals a broader reckoning with who a school system actually needs to function.
The solicitation was posted Sept. 16, 2026. A developer selection process will follow, with construction timelines not yet publicly specified.
