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High School
House Program
A primary strategy in our work is collaborating with local partners to revitalize the city’s historic neighborhoods, provide affordable housing, and help residents become first-time homebuyers. One of the most significant examples of this is our High School House Program, a collaboration with Great Falls Public Schools (GFPS) that has produced 45 High School Houses in this community over the last 24 years.
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NeighborWorks Great Falls joined forces with GFPS and the City to create the program, which provides new homes for residents with low or moderate incomes and gives high school students valuable employment skills. The students provide the labor while the city contributes community development block grant funding. NWGF supplies the lot, arranges subcontractors, and finances the construction. We also work with potential homebuyers to get them mortgage-ready with homebuyer education, individual homeownership planning, and down payment assistance through a matched savings program. The buyers must be first-time homeowners, and many have become first-generation homeowners.
This fruitful partnership has produced multiple advantages on all sides. The students get to work in an outdoor work site two hours a day all school year long, escaping from the confines of the classrooms. Some who were at high risk for dropping out of school stay to work on the High School House Program and graduate with their class. The off-campus classroom settings provide real-world work environments -- snow, wind, and high temperatures -- everything a construction worker must endure. The program also equips the students for future career path decisions and useful training they can put into practice right away.
2023-2024 High School House
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Great Falls High and CMR students are working on the 46th High School House at 1301 3rd Ave S. This 3 bed/2 bath house will become home to a first-time homebuyer in our community!
