In the Bay Area, Raising Kids Comes With Compromise

This story is part of How We Get By, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the full series here. 

Lauren Fierro and her husband spent years contemplating whether to have children. There were lots of uncertainties, but the biggest was whether they could afford it.

When Fierro discovered she was pregnant, her husband thought it was time to buy a home, but she wasn’t so sure. They started weighing their options.

Staying in Oakland meant taking on a mortgage they could barely afford. Leaving meant giving up the walkable neighborhoods, proximity to restaurants and other amenities she’d grown to appreciate.

“We lived walking distance to the farmers market, so it’s incredibly convenient, and we didn’t really want to give that up,” Fierro said, adding that to leave their apartment, ”It had to be for the perfect location, perfect house.”

For decades, Bay Area families have faced the same question: leave in search of affordability or stay and absorb the cost of living in one of the nation’s most expensive regions.

Since the pandemic, public school enrollment data shows many families have moved inland, fueling growth in certain districts within more affordable counties like Sacramento, Placer and Fresno. Meanwhile, many Bay Area districts are shrinking.

And families are still trying to make the Bay Area work — often by sacrificing space, walkability, commute times or financial flexibility.

Elk Grove realtor Charles Velasco has seen that tension play out in real time. During the pandemic, when work-from-home policies allowed desk employees to untether from their offices, he noticed a spike in Bay Area families looking for more affordable, family-friendly housing.

The data bears that out, with Elk Grove seeing a 2.4% spike in enrollment since 2020, and it was the fastest-growing school district in the state last year. The county’s median home price — $550,000, or more than $1 million less than San Francisco’s — was an obvious draw.

“A lot of people were realizing they’re paying $3,000 to $6,000 a month in rent in the Bay Area,” he said. “With a low interest rate, they could buy out in Elk Grove.”

But as mortgage rates have risen and employers have implemented stricter in-office requirements, Velasco said he has seen fewer families looking to leave the Bay Area.

For families considering staying in the region, that leaves a familiar question: What are they willing to compromise to continue living here?

Kiara and Gabriel Medina

Homeowners or Renters: Homeowners, bought in 2025

Percentage of Income Spent on Housing: 35%

Location: Martinez

What We Sacrificed to Make It Work: Commute

Kiara Medina and her husband always wanted to be homeowners. Last year, they started looking. At the time, they were living with her husband’s family in Brentwood, but they were eager to live on their own.

According to Zillow, the median sale price for a single-family home in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area is a little more than $1 million. Medina and her husband knew they didn’t want to spend more than that.

The 28-year-old grew up in the East Bay and still has family in Brentwood, so she and her husband wanted to find something nearby. The couple saw a listing in Martinez for an older home with warped floors and termite damage.

But it was within their budget and the perfect size to start a family, so they decided to buy. The neighborhood was near restaurants, shops and a historic downtown district. What’s more, it was filled with young families.

“There [were] just so many young families, young moms pushing strollers, young dads carrying their kids,” she said. “If you go to the farmers market, there’s a huge spectrum of ages, but a ton of young people with young kids, which was very encouraging and promising.”

During the pandemic, the quaint city on the shore of the Carquinez Strait became a popular destination for eager homebuyers looking for an affordable option. Average home prices surged from about $584,000 in 2017 to $874,000 in June 2022, according to Zillow. Average home prices have since dropped to $761,000 as more people return to the office.

Medina and her husband hope to have children soon. When they do, she’s grateful they live only a 30-minute drive from her family. But Medina now faces a three-hour round-trip commute three days a week to San Francisco. It’s worth it, she said, for the opportunity to own a home and gain equity.

“People are like, why the heck do you live in Martinez? That commute must be atrocious. And I do it with a smile on my face because I willingly chose not to rent in San Francisco or in Oakland or in Berkeley,” she said. “We chose to buy because that’s what we wanted our future to look like.”

Aparna and Andy Simmons

Homeowners or Renters: Homeowners, bought in 2024

Percentage of Income Spent on Housing: 27%

Location: East Oakland

What We Sacrificed to Make It Work: Walkability 

Aparna and Andy Simmons were ready to buy a home in 2024, after spending four years renting an apartment in San Francisco’s Cole Valley neighborhood. They had gotten married the year before and wanted to have children soon. Buying a home seemed like the next logical step.

They had hoped to find one in the city, but with a budget of under $1 million, they were quickly priced out of their preferred areas. As they looked, they would send listings to their other recently married friends, hoping they could all find homes nearby.

“We all got married at the same time, within a few months of each other, and wanted to have kids around the same time,” she said, “just having that community and having our kids grow up with friends — like built-in friends.”

But the timing didn’t work out. Some friends weren’t quite ready to commit to buying a home. So they decided to look on their own.

They found a home in Redwood Heights, a small neighborhood in the hills of East Oakland. The home had everything they wanted for their family: a backyard for a future pet, a pool and great views of San Francisco. Most importantly, it had space for their son, Kiran, who was born in November.

But the neighborhood isn’t as conveniently located as Simmons would like it to be. When they first moved there almost two years ago, she wasn’t worried about their ability to continue seeing their friends, who live all over the Bay Area. Both of them work from home and have no trouble driving to activities.

Now, Aparna Simmons said she is reevaluating her priorities. Some features of the home, like the pool, aren’t as important as living in a neighborhood where they can walk to restaurants, parks, farmers’ markets, yoga classes and other activities.

“I realize that is something we really want in our next place,” she said. “There’s things here that we’re like, ‘OK, this isn’t as important actually,’ and we prefer having it be walkable instead.”

Logan and Heidi Truman

Homeowners or Renters: Renters

Percentage of Income Spent on Housing: 11%

Location: San Francisco

What We Sacrificed to Make It Work: Space

Some might say the Truman family has an unconventional living situation. Logan and Heidi Truman, and their two sons, aged 11 and 13, cram into a studio apartment in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset neighborhood.

Heidi Truman found the rent-controlled studio near Golden Gate Park when she started a year-long residency program there at UC San Francisco.

“Then that year turned into a full-time position,” Logan Truman said. “And so she stayed, and then I moved in. It just was easier to stay and make it work than to try and figure something else out.”

When they had children, they managed within the tight space. Logan Truman converted a walk-in closet into a room for the boys, with a closet on one end and a bunk bed on the other. He built a fold-up wall bed in their living room, which becomes their bedroom at night.

They have considered moving elsewhere, to a home with more space, but the best solution always seems to be to stay put. Because their apartment is rent-controlled, yearly increases are incremental, and they’re protected from big price jumps.

“We can afford it,” he said. “So, we take the money that we earn above that, and we’re aggressively saving and maybe someday we can retire and own our own place, but not yet. We stay where we’re at, we keep working.”

Logan Truman said sacrificing space has taught his family how to live modestly and value experiences over material objects. Rather than buy books, they borrow from the library. If they want to go camping or skiing, they rent their equipment. They’re judicious about the appliances they keep in their kitchen: an Instant Pot, a toaster and a kettle.

Owning fewer items helps them save money, and it benefits the environment, he said.

They spend some of the money they save on family vacations. They recently took a seven-day cruise to Alaska with both sets of grandparents. Before that, they spent two weeks in Britain. Eventually, they’d like to travel to Scandinavia.

Logan Truman said their living situation has made his children more grounded.

“I’ve told them that there’s no room for animosity in the house — it just doesn’t fit,” he said. “So we have to get along. You can’t get away from anybody. You have to be respectful, you have to be courteous, you have to be kind.”

Kate Knuttel and Matt Quisenberry

Homeowners or Renters: Renters

Percentage of Income Spent on Housing: almost 50%

Location: American Canyon

What We Sacrificed to Make It Work: Affordability

Kate Knuttel and her partner, Matt Quisenberry, wanted to move to American Canyon, even if it meant living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Until two years ago, they and their four children crowded into a two-bedroom, one bathroom rental in Vallejo.

“There were three kids in one room and then us and the baby in the other room,” she said. “We were all very close. Luckily, there wasn’t too much fighting over the bathroom at that point.”

Her kids had some friends who lived nearby, but Knuttel didn’t feel safe letting them play in the street unsupervised. She and her partner yearned to find a place near other young families where her kids could thrive. And, they were starting to feel the pinch of living in a small space.

In 2022, before her youngest daughter was born, she and her partner, Matt Quisenberry, looked into buying a home in American Canyon, where he grew up.

But when they looked into how much their monthly mortgage payments would be, it was more expensive than their rent. So, they scrapped their plans for homeownership and opted to rent there instead.

They found a single-family home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms — a perfect set-up for their teenage children, who wanted more space for themselves. The kids enrolled in American Canyon schools and found others to play with in the neighborhood.

“It was so fortuitous to get to this spot,” she said. “We’re so close to everything because it’s a small town. The kids have friends, they can run around in the street. It’s really great, and it feels amazing to have this and it’s not ours forever, but yeah, it feels good.”

But their living situation is not without its challenges. Because American Canyon is so suburban, Knuttel said there aren’t many things to do in the area. Their rent is also more expensive than what they were paying in Vallejo.

Quisenberry and Knuttel make just enough for the family to get by, but not enough to save.

Over the past two years, Knuttel and Quisenberry said they have spent more than they make. So, they’ve become proficient at managing debt. They use 0% credit cards to give them more time to pay off expenses. But they feel certain this period will pass.

“Once [our youngest daughter is] in public school, we will be out of that decline,” Quisenberry said. “We’re just waiting it out. We’re continuing to acquire debt, but we’re managing it more intelligently.”

Lauren Fierro and Jimmy Phillips

Homeowners or Renters: Homeowners, bought in 2025

Percentage of Income Spent on Housing: 26.2%

Location: East Oakland

What We Sacrificed to Make It Work: Affordability

In September, Fierro and Phillips found what they were looking for: a storybook-style home in East Oakland.

Fierro admires its charm and quirky character, but it’s the neighborhood that captured her heart. On the first Friday of every month, neighbors host block parties and regularly check in on Fierro and her baby, Audrey, who was born in January, sharing clothes and toys their children have since outgrown.

Their neighborhood gave her family the best of both worlds: The safety and security of living near other young families and proximity to downtown Oakland. But that convenience came at a cost.

Their mortgage is more expensive than what they were paying in rent. Their utility bill is higher, too. Their 100-year-old home lacks insulation, which became a problem when a recent heat wave disrupted the region’s normally temperate climate. They bought a portable air conditioner for Audrey’s room so the baby didn’t overheat.

“We try to be really mindful about the amount of power and gas that we use, and we also just try to be mindful about really living within our means,” Fierro said.

Their family doesn’t eat out or go on trips as often as they did before moving into the house. Though Fierro and Phillips came from big families and would like to have more children, they said it would be impossible on top of their other living expenses.

For now, they are doing whatever they can to continue living in the city. It’s not affordable, Fierro said, and it often feels like an unfair burden to shoulder so their daughter can have access to a supportive neighborhood and a big city.

“It’s a price that we shouldn’t have to pay, but we are making work because we want this desperately for her,” she said.