St Joseph Affordable Homes News Edition 6 – 2025
Reflecting on 2025
As we wrap up 2025, we want to take a moment to thank you for your incredible support throughout what has been a year of change, growth, and progress toward building a sustainable and positive future for our organisation.
This year, we’ve celebrated some remarkable milestones: recognition in the HIA Awards, apprentices achieving finalist and winner status in prestigious programs such as the Tasmanian Training Awards (Will), the Association of Wall and Ceiling Industries & Siniat Apprentice Challenge (Luis), Tasmanian Building Group Apprenticeship Scheme’s Training Excellence Award (Tully), and the Mitchell Gordon Memorial Scholarship (Iris). We also celebrated apprentice graduations (Kurt, Sean, Hugh, and Zeke) and look forward to celebrating even more qualified tradespeople early in the new year.
While these achievements are significant, we also honour the everyday wins of our supervisors, trades and apprentices who continue to overcome challenges to have great success. It’s inspiring to see how our team has come together to create an environment we can all be proud of.
Thank you to our amazing subcontractors, especially those who host our apprentices. Your support is invaluable to our organisation.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to Hobart City Mission, The Archdiocese of Hobart, Loreto Community Housing and the Build Up Tassie program. Collaboration is the cornerstone of the impact we achieve.
From all of us at St Joseph Affordable Homes, we wish you a safe and joyful Christmas and New Year. We look forward to all that 2026 will bring!
Our operations will shutdown from Friday 19th December – Monday 5th January. There will be limited office staff working until the 24th December. From all of us at St Josephs, we wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Project Highlight – Hayfield Place
St Joseph Affordable Homes is proud to be delivering 56 new social and affordable homes at Hayfield Place, Bridgewater, for Loreto Community Housing. This exciting development is supported by Housing Australia through funding from the Housing Australia Future Fund.
We’re currently completing pre-site preparations and look forward to starting this site as one of our major projects for next year.
Celebrating Our Apprentices
We are very excited to share that Izaiah has qualified as a Bricklayer and that we have been able to offer him a permanent position with St Joseph Affordable Homes! Congratulations Izaiah, we can’t wait to have you onsite and mentoring the next generation of apprentices.
Shout out to Amaya who has just kicked over to the third year of her carpentry apprenticeship!
And finally, well done to apprentice Bricklayer, Eboney! In November she completed her Fireplace and Chimneys block at Tafe. As part of the training, she had to pick what type of chimney stack she would like to build. Eboney decided to challenge herself by completing a 470×470 twisted pier, while also putting in corbel courses. Her Tafe teacher commented that this was completed to a very high standard. Congratulations Eboney for your amazing work and for going above and beyond!
Congratulations Iris – Mitchell Gordon Memorial Scholarship
We are incredibly proud to share that Iris has been named the inaugural recipient of the Mitchell Gordon Memorial Scholarship! The award celebrates resilience, dedication, and mental health awareness within the electrical trade.
Iris, who is completing her electrical apprenticeship through St Joseph Affordable Homes, hosted with Degree C, was nominated by her TasTAFE teacher for the scholarship.
Valued at $5,000, the award is designed to support fourth-year electrical apprentices based in Southern Tasmania who trained at the Water, Energy and Trades Centre, Clarence Campus. It honours the legacy of Mitchell Gordon, recognising his contribution to the trade and encouraging meaningful conversations about mental health within the trades.
We’re incredibly proud of how Iris has handled herself during her apprenticeship. It hasn’t been easy and she faced challenges, including changing host companies to find the right fit. That decision took courage, and her resilience through personal struggles has been inspiring.
She’s developed confidence and skills, become a role model for others, and is always the first to help others, volunteer, and put her hand up to support. Her goal now is to mentor the next generation of apprentices.
Iris has shared that the scholarship is a reminder that perseverance pays off;
“Winning this award reminds me that hard work and showing up every day truly matters,” she said. “I’d like to use the scholarship to get set up with more tools to prepare myself as a tradie. Everybody’s got something going on, but I had a lot of outside stress early on. I was lucky to have St Joseph Affordable Homes backing me when I needed someone to lean on.”
Iris’s achievement sets a powerful example for apprentices across Tasmania.
Congratulations Tully – Training Excellence Award
Congratulations to Tully for receiving the Tasmanian Building Group Apprenticeship Scheme’s Training Excellence Award! We are incredibly proud of your growth and commitment to your training in Carpentry.
Apprentice Host Highlight – Power Solutions Tasmania
St Joseph Affordable Homes currently employs 25 apprentices. 12 of these are hosted through our subcontractors. We are incredibly grateful for the support of our apprentice host companies for sharing their knowledge with our young people and taking them on as their own.
In this newsletter, we would like to highlight Power Solutions Tasmania (PST). They currently host Ali and Abi.
PST is a Hobart-based, multi award winning contracting business servicing both Commercial and Residential properties. PST’s skill set transcends all areas of commercial electrical contracting, and their extensive experience spans multiple sectors.
PST’s work ethic is second to none. They take great pride in the results delivered and the contribution they make to the industry as a whole. Since their incorporation in 2018, their outstanding workmanship and exceptional service has earned them a substantial client base. Experienced in projects of all sizes, the team at PST pride themselves on delivering client satisfaction, on time, every time.
Kyle Skipworth (Founder and Managing Director) and the team have been great supporters of St Joseph Affordable Homes as both contractors and host employers. Kyle is a highly skilled electrician with more than 13 years of commercial and industrial experience. Kyle’s customer-oriented approach and consistently high standard of workmanship and project delivery has earnt PST a valued name in the Electrical trade.
A huge thank you to Kyle and the entire team at PST!
Supporting Our Team to Manage Mental Health in the Workplace
In December, the St Joseph’s leadership team (senior managers, site supervisors and all senior trades) engaged in “Managing Mental Health in the Workplace – for Managers”.
This is a government funded course for the Construction and Allied Trade Industry, facilitated by Lifeline Tasmania. The trainer, Tom, presented a very relatable and useful training session. Staff provided feedback that this training would help them to support their team better when it came to mental health concerns.
We are proud to be creating an environment where our team can feel safe and supported.
WH&S – Holiday Site Safety
Tips to ensure your site is secure and safe before shutting down for the holidays:
- Secure access points
- Secure boundary fencing so it can’t be pushed or blown over, check for any gaps
- Give your scaffolding, roofing, barriers, and partially constructed elements a once over to ensure they are secure and won’t be an issue in strong winds and other weather events
- Backfill excavations or ensure they are covered
- Ensure electrical safety by turning off the main switch and securing the main switchboard
- Remove unwanted construction materials and waste from the site
- Don’t forget to look after your psychological safety this holiday period, recharge, and reflect on your achievements from the year.
Position Available – Senior Carpenter
We are looking for a fulltime Qualified Senior Carpenter to join our team.
The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of experience as a qualified senior carpenter within the residential construction industry. This role will ensure carpentry projects are completed within pre-agreed programs, within budget, and to the highest quality standards. The successful candidate will be part of positive social outcomes for young Tasmanians through the training of apprentices.
This is a permanent full time role with access to Non-For-Profit Salary Packaging, bonus leave days, and opportunities for training and professional development.
Does this sound like something you or someone you know would be interested in? Give Bella a call on 0419 786 285 or find the job on Seek.
Join Our Board
St Joseph Affordable Homes is seeking a dynamic individual to join our Board of Directors.
Ideal candidates will bring:
- Industry experience in construction or related fields
- Project management expertise with a strategic mindset
- Strong understanding of cost control and budget accountability in a construction environment
- A commitment to social impact
At St Joseph Affordable Homes, we do more than build homes. Our dual purpose is to alleviate homelessness and housing stress through the construction of social and affordable housing, and to provide meaningful employment to young Tasmanians facing barriers to work in the construction industry.
Expressions of interest can be sent to brittany.boulton@aohtas.org.au.
Our Projects
90 homes are currently under construction or are recently completed:
- Franklin St, Triabunna – 36 dwellings
- George Town Road, Newnham – 49 dwellings
- Franklin St, Campbell Town – 5 dwellings
Future projects:
- McLeod St, New Norfolk – 10 dwellings
- Aquilla St, Glenorchy – 9 dwellings
- Hayfield Pl, Bridgewater – 56 dwellings
- Drummond Cr, Perth – 16 dwellings
- Dontay Drive Rokeby – 1 assisted residential dwelling
- Dontay Drive Rokeby – 4 dwellings
- Agnes St, Ranelagh Presbytery – 1 dwelling
- Agnes St, Ranelagh – 8 dwellings
- Faraday St, Ravenswood – 10 dwellings
- Rocherlea – 2 single dwellings
- Beaconsfield – 3 single dwellings
- Georgetown – 1 dwelling
