By Alysha Burrell, CIH Futures board member

As a young black woman working in housing, it’s inspiring to see black trailblazers and role models you’re passionate about in the sector.

Despite the underrepresentation of black people in housing, from the building site to the boardroom, they’ve played an important role in shaping the direction of the industry, and their achievements should be acknowledged.

Walt Braithwaite’s engineering team invented computer-aided design (CAD), with many architects now using this software to design houses. Roni Savage founded an engineering and environmental company and is challenging the status quo as one of the few black women in the industry.

Whilst black people’s achievements should be recognised all year round, the sector can use Black History Month as an anchor to engage more young black people who’ve never thought about housing as a career.

Around 25% of the sector will be retiring in the next 10 years and from a CIH Futures perspective, the sector can only have a viable future if it attracts and trains up more young and diverse people.

CIH Futures made a Black Lives Matter commitment to renew its focus from aiming to attract more young people to specifically more young diverse people into the sector.

We’ve tried to practice what we preach by diversifying our board through fair and inclusive recruitment, and we aim to share our platform to raise the profile of our young black members and all those whose voices so often go unheard.

A collective effort is required by the sector to raise the profile of black role models, by tackling unconscious bias and prejudice to ensure black employees progress and achieve their aspirations for themselves and for younger people to follow.

For me, the relevance of Black History Month is about celebrating the achievements of black history and culture, and continuing to learn, educate, and participate in the ongoing action that needs to be taken for racial equality.

Housing wealth is low for black people compared to other ethnic groups and impacts your ability to live a fulfilled life.

By innovatively engaging younger black people in the future decision-making of housing, and teaching young people about the role models and history of the sector, including the establishment and relevance of black and minority ethnic housing associations, it could create more inclusive communities and more young people actually choosing housing as a career.

Supporting black employees to participate in career talks at schools, colleges, and universities about what they do will be beneficial for all. Diversity of thought and diversity of visual representation matters. If you can see it, you can believe it.

Shining a light on the black role models of today who are breaking barriers is important for young black people to believe that they can belong in an industry like housing if they wish to pursue this career path.

Hopefully, then more young black people will be inspired to choose housing as a career and not just ‘fall into it’.