KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. — A day years in the making for the Dare Education Foundation as Dare County commissioners approved just over $1 million in funding to help with the foundation's teacher housing expansion on Tuesday.
"It's so hard to find a place to live," said Paolo Amortegui Valero, who lives at the Run Hill Ridge community with her husband, daughter and son.
Amortegui Valero moved here from Colombia years ago and is a teacher at Kitty Hawk Elementary School. Her family is able to live here because of the Dare Education Foundation's commitment to providing affordable housing for Dare County Schools teachers since 2008.
"It's been a great experience for my family and me," said Amortegui Valero.
For years, Dare County leaders have committed to helping fund part of the foundation's housing expansion that currently has 24 units in Kill Devil Hills and 12 in Buxton. On Tuesday, that's exactly what happened.
"The foundation has been looking at this goal for many years. This started from a pledge from the county to put a million dollars towards this. They said it a few years back, and then reiterated a couple of times," said Ben Sproul, the executive director of the Dare Education Foundation.
The foundation is now able to build 12 brand new units on the Kill Devil Hills property over the next 15 months, with teachers still currently on the waiting list to get into this housing.
"Hopefully in 15 months we won't be just putting one more teacher in, one more teacher, we'll be able to put 12 or more in all in one day, it'll be quite an exciting day. It's great for those individual teachers, but I know it's great for the school system as well," said Sproul.
This is also becoming a reality because of tremendous support from neighbors and leaders in the Outer Banks community.
"We got $100,000 gift from TowneBank, which is fantastic. The first million 150 comes from the county, the next $100,000 is that gift, and then whatever else we need to borrow, up to $3.5 million comes from the generous 2.9 rate money from TowneBank," said Sproul.
The cap amount for the 12-unit project is $4.65 million, and the savings the foundation will have on this project will allow them to continue their longtime commitment of supporting teachers in the classroom.
"The main thing that we do is teacher classroom grants. So, the money that we raise goes towards innovative ideas. Teachers come up with them, they have a little grant process, and we fund that a couple times a year. We also reimburse teachers for continuing education, so that's our core mission," said Sproul.
For teachers like Amortegui Valero, she's proud to know that another teacher in the future will have the opportunity that she has.
"I am very grateful with that, because as a foreign teacher, I know what that means. What a great opportunity for new teachers that want to come to Dare County," said Amortegui Valero.
The foundation built the first 24 units in Kill Devil Hills in 2008 and 12 more in Buxton in 2011. They have just finished paying the mortgages on those units, which has allowed for the reality of further expansion to become possible.
"This year was the year that we finished paying for those and gave us a great opportunity, cash flow wise, to move to the next phase. Really fortunate that that property is 5.3 acres and has room for 24 more units on it. We originally were only looking at doing eight units, because we wanted to be cautious and careful, but the county encouraged us to see just how far we could go. And when we relooked at the numbers, we realized with a little more contribution from the county and a little more help from TowneBank and a little more debt that we could stomach, we could get there and do 12 units all at once," said Sproul.
The foundation has always been committed to making sure the rent for these units is affordable for teachers. Current units range from $1,050 to $1,300 a month. Because the expansion will be brand new units, the expectation is for the rates of those to be around $1,500.
"The new ones we're looking at $1,500 partly about the cash flow, but partly because it's going to be a nicer product. It'll be brand new, everything about it will be new, and if everything goes to plan, we might be able to have them not just be two bedroom, two bath, but two bedroom, two and a half bath, just be a better experience for them. So we're excited about how nice it's going to be for them," said Sproul.
The hope is that by fall 2027, they will all be constructed and ready for move-in.
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