Delta-Schoolcraft students help address the area’s housing challenge using technical skills

This story was produced by My UP News, find the original story here.

To address housing needs and a shortage of skilled trades workers in the Upper Peninsula, Build UP is partnering with local intermediate school districts for a new program. It will allow students to go beyond the classroom to construct real homes in their communities. Beyond the cost of the project materials, proceeds from the sale of those homes will go back to the schools to keep the program running. In Escanaba, one home is currently under construction by students in the Delta Schoolcraft District.

We’re kind of returning to the past. So in my day, this was really pretty common. Students would go out into the field and actually build a home. The home was sold, and then a next group of students would do the same thing. Unfortunately, with budgets as they are, schools had to discontinue the practice. So now… Actually, schools have students gain the experience kind of in modules where they’re building the walls or doing the electrical or doing the plumbing and stages in the school itself and then tearing it apart and tackling the next module. So what this is doing is actually putting kind of that real value of seeing a whole home come together as opposed to just doing it in components and then disassembling the component and moving on to the next component. – Marty Fittante, CEO, Invest UP

Build UP, a subsidiary fund managed by Invest UP, has invested in three other development projects in the Upper Peninsula to date, which have now been completed. Partnerships with intermediate school districts in the Copper Country and Manistique will see further housing projects in the works by next spring.