Aaliyah Villegas aims to build a career in construction management by helping to build the first home for Saginaw’s Youth Development Corp., YDC.
Work near Burt and Fourteenth streets began in the dead of winter and is slated to conclude this spring.
Villegas is in her fourth year working in quality control for Capital Granite in Bridgeport, a prime source for household renovation projects, especially kitchens and bathrooms. She is expanding her knowledge as the YDC home-build moves from basic carpentry to such tasks as installing cabinets and wiring and drywall.
“My goal is to learn all of the trades,” she says, “so that I can own my own company within the next three to five years, to renovate older houses and then rent them out.”
She dismisses skeptics who insist abandoned urban-core properties are “too far gone” for rehab, but she acknowledges she will have to pick and choose any investments with care. She says a key lesson she already has learned is to look first at a home’s foundation.
Many of the 60 enrollees at YDC, ages 16 to 24, have dropped out of school, and some have gone through encounters with the police and law enforcement.
Aaliyah, 23, has endured neither. The main challenge for the 2016 Carrollton High School graduate is that she is a mother to a pair of children, 8-year-old Tristan and 6-year-old Kaleb.
“They motivate me, and I’m doing this for them,” she says. “I want them to know that they can do different things in life.”
She completed her freshman year as a standout 5-foot-5 point guard for Carrollton’s girls basketball team, a community with a strong tradition in the sport. Then came Tristan, but she returned to play during her junior year. After Kaleb was born, she could have quit for her senior year, but she became an assistant coach instead, a volunteer activity that she has continued.
“I love basketball and I have a passion, and this allows me to help to teach the younger girls,” Aaliyah explains.
She is several years older than most of her student peers, regarded as a leader and a role model on the home-build crew, which is guided by licensed professionals.
Villegas was seeking work in a sales capacity when she applied at Capital Granite in 2018, but soon she found herself helping to measure and cut everything from countertops to cupboards. While at Carrollton High, she had not anticipated any sort of career in building trades. Now that she has taken the first step, she is aiming for the top.
“At the YDC, they give us second chances,” Aaliyah asserts, “but we also have to put ourselves out there and make the effort.”
