Building Industry Tech Academy Supporting Warrior Village Project for Homeless Vets

San Diego-region students from San Marcos High School are learning that the building skills they gain this year may help rebuild lives someday. A tip of the hat for the school’s Building Industry Technology Academy’s teacher Chris Geldert who focused students on hitting a punch list, even while the school was still on winter break, to meet the “mission critical” deadlines for framing on two cottages for the Warrior Village Project that will provide housing for homeless veterans.

Fallbrook resident Mark Pilcher began the project in 2018 as a more economic way of creating affordable housing, while also addressing the dwindling number of people entering the construction field and the large number of homeless people throughout the country.

Michael McSweeney, a senior public policy adviser with the Building Industry Association of San Diego County, says there is a severe shortage of skilled construction workers in the country because 6,000 people retire each day from the field, and he sees this project as a way of attracting more students to a career that can earn them a good income.

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