BuildUP Community School Wins Dollar 3 Million: BuildUP Community School in Birmingham is set to utilize a substantial national grant for expanding initiatives geared towards preparing high school youth for skilled trade careers and homeownership.
Acknowledged by Enterprise Community Partners and The Wells Fargo Foundation, BuildUP is among the six victors of the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge (HABC). This nationwide competition seeks and supports innovative housing solutions across the U.S., awarding the workforce development-focused high school $3 million.
In addition to the monetary grants ranging from $2 million to $3 million, the six winning organizations will receive support from peers and industry experts to scale new strategies focusing on enhancing accessibility to homes.
Established in 2018 in the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham, BuildUP employs a workforce development model providing low-income youth with career-ready skills through paid internships and industry-aligned secondary and early post-secondary coursework. Graduates of the program attain the education and credentials necessary for well-paid positions in the housing and construction trades, with the prospect of becoming homeowners and community leaders.
The three-year grant will facilitate BuildUP’s expansion to new sites in Alabama and beyond, involving the hiring of additional staff and the augmentation of its house donation/relocation program. This program secures, relocates, and renovates houses with the assistance of BuildUP students. The expansion efforts will be spearheaded by BuildUP founder Mark Martin.
Martin expressed, “We get calls almost weekly from people asking us to bring BuildUP to their communities. We always saw the need for expansion, and Enterprise and Wells Fargo have now helped open the door to that opportunity.”
HABC funds will also be allocated to support the flagship high school, BuildUP Community School, in Birminghams Titusville community, led by Executive Director James Sutton. Sutton aims to continue growing the school’s enrollment with students aspiring to secure high-wage, high-demand jobs in the trades and pursue homeownership.
“Winning the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge puts us into a pool of like-minded people who are doing great work people we can continue to grow with and lean on for support,” Sutton remarked. “It also means we can see more of our students become homeowners and literally change the trajectory of their lives.”
The Alabama Power Foundation is among the supporters of BuildUP.
The HABC competition attracted over 400 applicants from diverse nonprofit and mission-driven for-profit organizations across the U.S. The applicants competed in three categories: access and resident support; construction; and financing. BuildUP emerged victorious in the access and resident support category.
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Following two application rounds, the 16 finalists were invited to present their innovations in a 10-minute pitch to a panel of judges comprising national affordable housing and community development experts, including leaders from Wells Fargo and Enterprise.
Other grant winners include California-based Grounded Solutions Network, Hope Enterprise Corp. based in Jackson, Mississippi, Hydronic Shell Technologies in New York, Pittsburgh-based Module, and Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority in Juneau, Alaska.
The 2023 winners will participate in a multiyear, peer-learning network to share ideas and cultivate their innovations into solutions applicable to communities across the U.S. The cohort will gain access to a network of leaders from the housing sector, including experts from Enterprise and past competition winners.
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