Battle Creek turns housing into a benefit for early childhood educators

Editor’s note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave’s On the Ground Battle Creek series.

BATTLE CREEK, MI — Housing is about to become a salaried benefit for Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) in Battle Creek through a new initiative that is offering a pathway for these professionals to get into home ownership, says Kathy Szenda Wilson, Co-Executive Director of Pulse.

In May, two ECE professionals will move into a two-unit duplex located on Battle Creek’s northside. They will live there rent-free. The duplex is owned by Neighborhoods Inc. of Battle Creek (NIBC), which will own and maintain the two-unit structure.

New Haven, Connecticut, was the first city in the country to design, launch, and implement the First Home, First Teacher initiative. The model was developed and piloted by Friends Center for Children, making New Haven the national proof point for how teacher housing can function as a salaried benefit in early childhood education, says Allyx Schiavone, Executive Director of the Friends Center for Children.

“We started a conversation about what this would look like in other places,” Szenda Wilson says. “(Allyx) invited us to come out, and we brought the idea here. We’ve been working over the course of the last 18 months to establish a working group to establish partnerships. The Battle Creek Community Foundation (BCCF) has committed $150,000 over 10 years.”

‘Woefully underpaid’

First Home, First Teacher is the latest iteration of housing assistance programs for ECE professionals in Calhoun County. In 2021, through a program managed by Community Action Agency of South Central Michigan (CAASM) the first of a three-year allocation of $150,000 in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds and a $450,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) in 2022 was allocated to early childcare workers who qualified for rental or utility assistance.

More than 60 ECE professionals who rented their homes received one-time assistance of up to $6,000, and homeowners were eligible for up to $4,000 for assistance with property taxes and utilities, which they received monthly in $500 increments. .

“First Home First Teacher is the next phase of what we want to do,” says Lisa Farrell, Early Childhood Pathway Grant Manager with CAASCM.

The need for these types of resources for ECE professionals has never been greater, says Szenda Wilson.

“These are professionals who are woefully underpaid,” she says.

As of Mar 9, 2026, the average annual pay for an Early Childhood Educator in Michigan is $30,823 a year, according to ZipRecruiter. This works out to about  $14.82 an hour, the equivalent of $592/week or $2,568/month.

The Federal Poverty Level for Michigan for individuals is between $15,650 to $17,990 annually.

While ZipRecruiter says it’s seeing salaries “as high as $46,631 and as low as $16,560, the majority of Early Childhood Educator salaries currently range between $25,700 (25th percentile) to $34,400 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $40,964 annually in Michigan which ranks number 50 out of 50 states nationwide for Early Childhood Educator salaries.”

For years, Schiavone says, she’s watched “extraordinary” early-childhood educators — 94% of whom are women and disproportionately women of color — struggle to meet their most basic needs while giving everything they had to other people’s children. She says First Home, First Teacher was born from that tension: a way to invest in teachers through one-time infrastructure investments that create lifelong, annualized compensation benefits.

“In 2019, we wanted to raise salaries. We thought about how to do this and framed our thinking around this essential question to guide our learning: How do we raise teacher salaries without adequate federal investment or raising parent tuition?” Schiavone says. 

Friends Center for Children spent eight months wrestling with that question and couldn’t find a workable solution. Eventually, Schiavone suggested a shift in perspective — if money couldn’t be added to teachers’ salaries, could a major expense be removed instead?

“That led us to survey our teachers, and the results were striking,” she says. “Housing was by far their largest expense, and only one educator owned a home. Some were even couch-surfing. It became clear that this initiative needed to start by listening to what our teachers were telling us about their lived reality.”

Funding for the New Haven model began with philanthropic dollars and grew to include $250,000 in public funding to expand the work. Schiavone says her organization leverages every dollar spent through community partnerships, including Yale University’s School of Architecture.

“As we expand nationally, we are increasingly integrating public funding sources, which allows this model to scale beyond individual organizations,” she says.

In addition to Connecticut and Michigan, the First Home, First Teacher model is being replicated in Georgia, Massachusetts, and Missouri.

More than 100 workforce units that will eventually serve about 30 percent of Battle Creek’s early-childhood workforce are planned, Schiavone says.

“In Massachusetts, teacher housing is being developed for an in-home child-care provider with a pathway to homeownership. And in Georgia and Missouri, center-based providers have launched a small teacher-housing program tied to their schools,” she says.

By design, First Home, First Teacher is sustainable because it replaces fragile, year-to-year fundraising and temporary salary subsidies with one-time infrastructure investments that generate recurring, long-term benefits. 

“Rather than chasing annual dollars to close wage gaps, we invest in real estate — an appreciating asset — that permanently reduces operating costs while increasing teacher compensation year after year,” Schiavone says. “This approach creates a durable financial model: the housing functions like a physical endowment, delivering predictable value, stabilizing the workforce, and allowing programs to plan for the long term. Sustainability isn’t an outcome we’re hoping for — it’s built into the structure of the model itself.”

Supporting the supporters

Szenda Wilson says First Home First Teacher is a multi-decade project. Getting the first two ECE workers into the duplex on Calhoun Street will give people a better sense of how the program works.

In 2021, there were already discussions focused on the duplex property as a transitional pilot project, says Whitney Wardell, President and CEO of NIBC.

After the property sat vacant for some time, it underwent lead abatement through the City of Battle Creek and was later rented as two two-bedroom, one-bath units.

“When I learned about the First Home, First Teacher pilot, this duplex immediately came to mind. With the recent lead work completed, its proximity to downtown Battle Creek, and its location near several Early Childhood centers, it felt like an ideal fit,” Wardell says. “The duplex will be used exclusively for the First Home, First Teacher pilot.”

Her initial introduction to the New Haven model happened when she was invited to serve on a committee that provided financial assistance to Early Childhood Care providers. 

A group that included Szenda Wilson, Farrell, Megan Russell Johnson, and Jamie Schriner, both WKKF Program Officers, travelled to New Haven to see the model firsthand.

After the group toured the New Haven model, Wardell says they began conversations with her and others began about replicating something similar in Battle Creek.

“As I continued participating in meetings, reviewing applications, and even witnessing the positive impact on an NIBC tenant firsthand, I knew I wanted to remain involved,” Wardell says. “A few meetings later, I was introduced to the Director of the New Haven project during an in-person meeting, which further solidified NIBC’s commitment to the effort.”

Szenda Wilson says the tenants of the homes in New Haven were advocates for the project and the opportunities it is providing to them.

“One tenant said she never dreamed she’d be a homeowner ever. She has elevated her role in the childcare company she works for and is continuing her education. She said, ‘I’m worthy of these things.” 

It really comes down to housing with dignity, Szenda Wilson says.

“The project in New Haven is super-intentional, with landscaping being the most expensive line-item. They redid the initial house with three more already built. These are multi-family houses with everyone having their own bedroom and shared space, like a communal kitchen and living room. It’s almost like a campus.”

Similar to resources available to tenants in New Haven, Farrell says CAA will provide wraparound supports for program-eligible ECE professionals in Battle Creek, including fiscal mentorship and emotional well-being support.

“We’re helping them establish goals and use this as an opportunity to elevate themselves in their careers and lives,” Szenda Wilson says. “This is a way for us to honor the brain builders among us.”

Ultimately, Schiavone says, the New Haven model demonstrates how a one-time investment in housing can permanently increase teacher compensation by more than $23,000 per year on average, stabilize the workforce, expand access to child care, and build lasting community wealth — all while directly addressing systemic inequities in a female-dominated, undervalued profession.

“Early childhood educators are doing some of the most essential work in our society, yet they are paid less than 97% of all other professions. The workforce is overwhelmingly made up of women, disproportionately women of color, and the chronic undervaluation of their labor has predictable consequences: high turnover, workforce shortages, program closures, and reduced access to child care for families,” she says. “At the same time, housing costs have surged, pushing many educators into financial instability or out of the field entirely.”

This lack of safe, affordable, quality care for children often creates difficult choices for families.

Childcare costs are rising rapidly, with a 29% increase from 2020 to 2024, outpacing inflation by 1.5 times, according to Childcare Aware of America. The organization says that infant care often exceeds rent or college tuition, forcing many parents — particularly women — to reduce hours or leave the workforce. Factors include labor shortages, higher insurance/operating costs, and low public funding.

Child care does not function in a free market, Schiavone says, adding that families cannot afford the true cost of care, and providers cannot raise prices without pricing families out. As a result, early educators absorb the shortfall through poverty-level wages.

“This is a structural economic issue, not simply a private family challenge,” she says. “High child care costs suppress workforce participation, reduce household income, and weaken long-term economic growth. If we want families to thrive and the economy to remain stable, affordable child care has to be treated as essential infrastructure, not a luxury.”