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More Than 40 Colleges Apply for HELP Construction Program Grants
 More than 40 colleges and universities have applied for the 2007 HELP grants — the National Housing Endowment’s Homebuilding Education Leadership Program that was created last year to bolster residential construction management programs around the country.
HELP was created because many college-level construction management programs today focus on commercial construction. The goal of the HELP program is to seed or grow residential construction programs and to triple the number of college graduates entering the home building industry over the next decade.
HELP is providing grants of up to $100,000 to two- and four-year colleges and universities so they can expand or enhance existing residential construction management programs, or develop new programs in that academic area. Schools are expected to leverage the HELP grants to create permanent funding for their residential construction program.
“This is a project that is very close to the hearts of our National Housing Endowment Board of Trustees,” said Gary Garczynski, endowment chairman and 2002 NAHB president.
More than 40 schools submitted letters of inquiry to the endowment by April 1, the deadline for the first phase of the application process. Their requests are being reviewed by an endowment panel that will notify promising schools to submit a request for proposal, the second phase of the grant process.
The requests for proposal must be submitted by July 1. The endowment will review those requests and award the grants in November. The endowment will make a formal announcement of the winners at the 2008 International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Fla. in February.
Past Winners
Three academic institutions — Eastern Carolina University, Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore — were awarded the HELP program’s initial grants last year.
For Information
For more information about the HELP grant program, or to download a Request for Proposal, visit the HELP initiative on the endowment Web site by clicking here.
To learn more about the endowment, visit www.nationalhousingendowment.org.
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