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Building Homes, Creating Jobs

For every thousand homes we build, thousands of jobs are supported.

Every home we build makes an impact. Not just for the buyer but for the larger community. According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) , building 1,000 average single-family homes creates approximately 2,900 full-time jobs and generates approximately $110 million in taxes and fees for all levels of government, which in turn supports police, firefighters, schools, and other essential community services.

The impact is far-reaching. NAHB estimates that when a home is constructed, about half of the jobs supported are in non-construction. The NAHB model demonstrates that building new homes and apartments generates jobs in industries that produce lumber, concrete, and other products that go into a home. Even more job opportunities materialize thanks to the process of transporting, storing, and selling materials related to constructing a home. Jobs are also created in professional fields including sales, architecture, real estate, law, accounting, and engineering.

Jobs lead to income, which drives the housing market and the need for more homes. The impact of home building on job creation is felt not in one fell swoop but in a ripple effect that is truly powerful and long-lasting.

At ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø, one of our guiding principles is to Create Value, and adding value through our work takes on new meaning when we consider the far-reaching ramifications of building even just one home. It is a critical part of our legacy, as well as our future.

Investing in Education

We're focused on addressing inequities in education and making sure underserved populations have access to quality education. The evidence is overwhelming that quality education improves people's lives, makes our economy more efficient, and contributes to a more equitable society.

Real Estate Exchange Summer Programs

In conjunction with the Real Estate Executive Council, an organization comprised of senior minority executives in the real estate industry, ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø is a multi-year sponsor of the Real Estate Exchange (REEX) Summer Program for high school sophomores and juniors of diverse backgrounds. The program introduces several hundred high-achieving students to the real estate industry through summer programs run at various universities including Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Marquette, NYU, Roosevelt, SMU, University of Miami, and others. ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø executives participate through panels and site tours. This important program is designed to build a pipeline of candidates with diverse backgrounds to become future leaders in our industry.

The Posse Foundation

We're proud to support The Posse Foundation, an organization that is doing fantastic work. For more than 30 years, Posse has identified and trained young people with extraordinary potential who might be missed by elite schools. Posse Scholars receive full merit scholarships to over 60 top colleges and universities across the country. They are then sent to college in multicultural groups of 10, serving as a support system for one another. Posse is rooted in the belief that a small, diverse group of talented students, carefully selected and trained, can serve as a catalyst for individual and community development.

YouthBuild

We are also proud to support YouthBuild as they champion opportunity youth, young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither in school nor employed. With care and respect, YouthBuild partners with opportunity youth to build the skillsets and mindsets that lead to lifelong learning, livelihood, and leadership. At nearly 300 YouthBuild programs across the U.S. and around the globe, these young people receive their high school equivalency or diploma along with key industry credentials and certifications, life skills, post-secondary education and training, as well as experience building affordable housing and other community assets. They pursue their education, prepare for future careers, and grow into community leaders, building brighter futures for themselves, and their neighborhoods.

Scholarship Funding

In Pennsylvania, where our corporate headquarters is located, we provide funds for need-based scholarships at several private schools, so students from under-resourced families have access to high-quality, safe, tuition-based schools, thereby increasing their long-term economic and social success. Current partners include:

• Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School, Philadelphia
• Independence Mission Schools, Philadelphia
• Germantown Academy, Fort Washington
• The Episcopal Academy, Newtown Square
• Lancaster Country Day School, Lancaster
• Greene Street Friends School, Philadelphia

First Tee of Philadelphia

ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø supports First Tee of Greater Philadelphia, whose mission is to positively impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values, and promote healthy choices through the game of golf. At golf facilities, public schools, youth services organizations, and after-school programs, First Tee provides children with equal access to golf, caring mentors, and a safe place to spend time after school. First Tee seamlessly integrates character education with a golf curriculum and is dedicated to building programs that are as accessible, welcoming, and impactful as they are fun.

Cristo Rey Philadelphia Work-Study Program

We have a special partnership with Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School, a college preparatory school that enables students to work in an office a few hours each week through their Work-Study Program. The wages they earn at their jobs fund a substantial portion of the cost of their education. Each year, we host several students through the Work-Study Program at our corporate headquarters in Fort Washington.

Building Talent Foundation

ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø is one of the founding partners of the Building Talent Foundation (BTF). BTF works to address the persistent labor shortage across the country and advance the education, training, and career progression of young people and people from underrepresented groups as skilled technical workers and as business owners in residential construction. By working together with schools, BTF is able to adjust curriculums and training programs to ensure that young adults are learning the right skills to be successful in a future career, and then acting as a resource for both job seekers and employers. They also aim to build the talent pipeline by inspiring more young adults and people of color to explore a career in homebuilding. BTF brings together employers, educators, and all other market players to catalyze, accelerate, and synchronize joint projects for building the sector's workforce of the future.

Commitment to Fair Housing for All

We are committed to providing fair housing opportunities in all of our communities. That starts with our people. We provide training to our sales, leasing, and project management teams under the Fair Housing Act to ensure that our communities are available to all, regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, familial status, religion, or disability. Our websites include important features that remove barriers to users with vision or hearing impairments or those with cognitive, language, or learning disabilities. They are designed to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) so that they are perceivable, operable, and understandable by users utilizing various devices and platforms, including assistive technologies. We design our sales centers to be physically accessible to customers and guests with disabilities. We retain third-party accessibility professionals to review and consult on the design of our apartment and high-rise condominium communities and to conduct inspections during construction, all with an eye to ensuring that all common areas and residential units are built to be accessible to buyers and guests with disabilities. We offer accessible units for sale in each of our multi-family communities, and we offer to include wide-ranging modifications to improve accessibility in our to-be-built homes for buyers and guests with disabilities.

Nurturing the Future

Massachusetts Adopt a Home Program

In 2019, ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø Regency at Glen Ellen community welcomed over 20 freshmen and seniors from Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School in Franklin, Massachusetts to meet and greet professional Construction Managers in a home under construction.

ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø started this program in 2016 to give students real-world exposure to the industry with the goal of sparking interest for their future career path.

“Our hope is to allow the kids to touch and feel the process, which is better than just hearing about it in the classroom,“ explains Ryan O'Rourke, ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø Project Manager for the Regency at Glen Ellen community. “We've actually had the buyers of the home participating and interacting with the kids. They feel it takes a village in the learning process.“

During the course of the program, ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø designates a home, shares building plans with the students for classroom review and welcomes student visitors approximately every two weeks during the school year.

Brian Boyd, Tri-County's carpentry teacher, said, “The partnership that has been forged between Tri-County and ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø has been instrumental in the education of our students. For an aspiring tradesperson, there is no substitute for being able to get out into the field and witness real work happening at a real-world pace. Our students have been able to do that regularly and witness all of the different phases of the construction process. What has been so great about ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø inviting us out to their development to track the construction process has been their availability. Each visit, our students are able to listen to a Project Manager describe what has happened since our last visit, why it was done, and then take any questions our students may have.“

ºÚÁÏÍø¹ÙÍø has partnered with Nashoba Valley Technical and Milford High Schools as well as Tri–County to replicate this initiative throughout several communities in Massachusetts, affecting over 80 students a year, and making a real impact in the communities in which we build.