Greater Charlotte Apartment Association
Anthony V. Pusateri Apartment Career Promotion Award - Comprehensive Program

Program Information:

Describe the different events, projects or initiatives that the Apartment Career Promotion program consists of. 

• Our A.C.C.E.S.S. (Apartment Career Credentials that Empower Students to Succeed) Program was created in 2019 to address the living wage and housing affordability disparities in the Greater Charlotte region. With a focus on providing career opportunities to economically disadvantaged high school students who did not see college as an option, our program took a multilayered approach to achieving its goals of building a skilled labor pipeline for our region's multifamily industry while also breaking cycles of poverty.
  
  The program included two major components: 1) embedding the certificate for apartment maintenance technician (CAMT) and national apartment leasing professional (NALP) credential programs in local public high schools; and 2) creating a hub for high school students to experience multifamily careers and learn about the industry in a fun, interactive way.
  
  The first step in achieving our goal of promoting apartment careers with high school students involved forging a partnership with Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) and getting buy-in from its Director of Career & Technical Education. Our partnership with CMS was sparked by our relationship with School Board members who we convinced of the infinite career pathways that existed in the multifamily industry and the benefit this would have for students they were failing with a long-standing focus on college prep rather than vocational training.
  
  We then enlisted veteran members, including newly-minted NAAEI instructors, to segment and teach the NAAEI CAMT curriculum to high school graduates through a summer fast-track CAMT pilot program. We had 13 graduates from the class of 2019 apply for the pilot that took place from July 8 - July 23, 2019. Of the 13 applicants, six participated in the training that went from 8 am to 4 pm daily for two weeks with an additional day for review before finally taking their CAMT exams.
  
  As part of the pilot program, we solicited owner members to hire program graduates as maintenance tech interns to allow them to complete their provisional CAMT employment requirement and receive additional mentoring. Of the six pilot program graduates, four were hired for full-time employment by our members and are currently working in our industry.
  
  The summer pilot allowed us to assess program needs and make the necessary adjustments to support a full launch of the embedded program in two CMS high schools. From September to December 2019, we worked with career coordinators at the two selected high schools to host career discovery days, distribute promotional materials and recruit program participants from amongst their senior classes. The summer CAMT pilot program graduates have assisted with recruiting by sharing their positive experience with the program as well as their employment achievements.
  
  But that's not all, we also established a partnership with Junior Achievement of Central Carolinas to create a Residential Property Management (RPM) Careers Exploration Center in their JA Finance Park facility. The RPM Careers Center, designed to look like an upscale leasing office, serves as a secondary recruiting hub for our embedded credential program. The 1,000's of high school students who visit the JA Finance Park every month are exposed to apartment careers in our Center through their interaction with the apartment homes virtual reality station, laptops that take them directly to career pages on the NAA website and the 11 foot wide "Apartment Careers Wall" with information reprinted from NAAEI credential brochures.
  
  The A.C.C.E.S.S. Program is designed to not only attract young people to apartment careers but ultimately to spread the word far and wide about the incredible opportunities that exist in our industry for anyone.

What were the results of your Apartment Career Promotion program?

• Our Summer CAMT Pilot Program received 13 applications from 2019 high school graduates. Of those 13 applicants, six completed the three-week program. While the program graduates did not pass their CAMT exams on the first try, they all interviewed with seven of our owner members and four were hired as maintenance tech interns. The companies that interviewed them included Greystar, Northwood Ravin, Ginkgo Residential, Blue Ridge Companies, RKW Residential, Marsh Properties and Southwood Realty.
  
  The students, who had no intentions of attending college after graduation and who were unsure of their post-graduation opportunities, received a starting salary of $15/hour which is well above the average wage for new high school graduates in NC with relatively little work experience. Since completing the pilot program, the graduates have assisted us in recruiting other students to participate in the embedded program this school semester.
  
  We have received very positive feedback from the owner members who hired the program graduates and have an upcoming feature story on a local network news outlet highlighting one of the program graduates and his journey. We believe this story will generate tremendous interest in and financial support for the program.
  
  Our RPM Careers Exploration Center had 5,000+ unique student visits from April - December 2019. The traffic to our MultifamilyCareersCLT.com website has soared in that time. Additionally, viewing of NAAEI apartment career videos on the smart touch monitor in our Center is very high. As a result, we've received inquiries from one additional high school to bring the A.C.C.E.S.S. Program to their school.
  
  Volunteer members from our Multifamily Career Awareness Committee helped us host a Career Discovery Day along with the City of Charlotte that was attended by approximately 6,000 students from diverse backgrounds. This career fair promoted apartment careers and the A.C.C.E.S.S. Program.
  
  To date, we've received a $10,000 grant from the Jack & Jill Foundation of America and $5,000 from Foundation for the Carolinas for the A.C.C.E.S.S. Program. We've created promotional videos from the summer pilot program that will be used to recruit students for the 2020 launch of the embedded high school CAMT and NALP credential program. We've already received 23 applications for the CAMT class alone at one of the high schools.