2nd Annual Workforce Development Camp

The Spokane Homebuilders Association is hosting the second annual Frame Your Future Workforce Development Camp this weekend. The purpose of this weekend long event is to give high school students hands on experience, and to have conversations with local builders to get a sense of what a career in the trades would look like. With the guidance of industry professionals, students will work together to build sheds that will be used for practical purposes around the Mead High School campus. These sheds present students with the opportunity to learn a wide variety of industry related skills such as blueprint reading, power tool usage, roofing, siding, safety, carpentry, and many more.

The Spokane Homebuilders Association developed this program last year in response to the nationwide shortage of skilled workers in the home building industry. This shortage, along with other factors, have contributed to the rising housing prices we are experiencing in Spokane. In order to help mitigate the labor shortage, Frame Your Future enlists the help of local schools, local builders, and parents in an effort to supply the kids who do not want to study at a four-year university with trade related information that they might not receive at their high schools. Last year, three students who participated in the Workforce Development camp were hired by SHBA members on the spot. The Spokane Homebuilders Association is excited for year two of the Workforce Development Camp, and are confident in the benefits this program, along with others like it, will contribute to the Spokane community.

The labor shortage has been a growing problem since before 2020. As funding for schools are continually cut from year to year, the departments that suffer are primarily those that do not directly contribute to a child’s ability to go to a four-year university. These are classes such as shop and drama. Kids are simply not being given the choice to go into trades based on the education they have access to; they have to rely on family members who are in the industry, or seek out extra education outside the normal school day. In addition to educating the kids, Frame Your Future hopes to reinvigorate the trades as a standard means of education in schools for not only Spokane, but hopefully the country as a whole because as it stands right now, the housing numbers we are facing as a community are not looking good at all.

• Median Price of a home in Spokane County: $436,500
• Median Household income in Spokane County: $60,101
• Percentage of households who cannot afford to buy a median-priced home in Spokane County: 84%