Building futures

Home builders are not only building for the future, we are building futures. The home building industry provides job training for thousands of Americans every year and helps bolster the number of workers trained in the trades.

The Home Builders Institute (HBI), the workforce development arm of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), has been a leader for nearly 30 years in providing hands-on training to young men and women at Job Corps campuses around the country. HBI graduates more than 2,000 young people into jobs in eight different vocations each year. This represents an enormous service to thousands of young men and women placing their hopes for a second chance through a career in the construction trades. These young people learn brick masonry, building and apartment maintenance, carpentry, electrical wiring, landscaping, painting, plumbing and solar heating.

NAHB’s partnership with Job Corps through HBI has been building futures for many years, however, the staggering numbers of qualified people needed to keep pace with the demand for housing has led to new approaches to find effective solutions.

Build a Home, Build a Career is one such program. The result of a pilot project funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, Build a Home takes the building industry to the high school classroom by introducing young people to its numerous career paths while enhancing their educational performance.

It is an integrated learning experience that links classroom lessons with five core academic subjects — career exploration, English/communications, social studies, science and math — to the home-building process.

There is no one way to implement Build a Home, Build a Career. It can be a yearlong school project culminating in the construction of a house or as simple as using activities from the lesson booklets.

Build a Home, Build a Career is just one example of how the home building industry works to build futures for young men and women and build for the future. For more information on HBI or Job Corps visit www.hbi.org or call 800-733-JOBS.

There are also many great opportunities at the local level to pursue a career in the construction industry. Please contact Kim Waseca-Love, education and apprenticeship director for the Spokane Home Builders Association, if you would like information on the SHBA’s Carpentry Apprenticeship program. She can be reached at (509) 532-4990.