This comes in addition to the $2,000 annual stipends that teachers at these schools already receive on top of their base salaries, a bump stemming from a 2008 voter-approved bond. In the coming fiscal year, those educators will also receive an additional $2,500, bringing their total stipend amount to $7,500, the mayor's office said.

"Students in San Francisco deserve a high-quality education, regardless of where they live or go to school," Breed said in a statement. "San Francisco is an expensive place to live and we hope that these stipends will help our educators afford the cost of living so that they can be part of the community in which they work."

California's housing crisis has taken a particularly tough toll on the state's educators, particularly those living and working in expensive coastal regions, where average teaching salaries have generally failed to keep pace with skyrocketing rents or home prices and other living costs.

[Check out the interactive teacher-housing cost calulator tool below.]

Almost nowhere is this more apparent than in notoriously expensive San Francisco. Here, the average SFUSD teacher makes nearly $84,000, according to the district, a salary that's slightly higher than the average for teachers statewide but still hardly enough to cover expenses in a city where rents alone typically exceed $3,000.

"Relatively low pay, on top of a full-fledged housing crisis is a big reason why teachers leave the district," said Jenny Lam, a San Francisco Board of Education commissioner, who also serves as Breed's education adviser. "We see that the turnover rate at high-potential schools is higher. So this is an opportunity to focus in on [those] schools. ... The goal is to continue building retention over time."

Breed's new stipend plan comes on the heels of recent efforts by her administration to create more affordable housing for teachers in the city. One upcoming ballot measure would allow 100% affordable and educator housing to be built on parcels of public land that are over 10,000 square feet (not including parks).

At San Francisco’s 25 high-potential schools, nearly all of which are in the city's Bayview, Mission and southeastern neighborhoods, roughly a third of educators are first- or second-year teachers, and the turnover rate is 27%, as compared to the districtwide rate of 21%, according to the mayor's office.