"I had enjoyed hospitality work and felt I was good at it but didn't see myself doing it for my lifelong career. I hadn't finished school - I was a bit of a troubled youth and left early. So that limited my options a bit," he said.

"Then out of the blue I was asked if I would be interested in considering a cadetship as a housing officer with SEARMS Batemans Bay.

"I thought to myself, may as well give it a go."

SEARMS is one of the largest and most influential Aboriginal controlled community housing providers in Australia.

Mr Davis said he liked the role right from the beginning.

"It taught me so much that I didn't know about. Although I was a social housing tenant myself, I didn't know anything about sustaining tenancies or the legal aspects of lease termination," he said.

Now, in his daily work, Mr Davis is part of the team that manages the maintenance aspects of SEARMS housing properties. Tenants contact him to report maintenances issues with their properties and he follows up by contracting the relevant tradie to sort it out.

Mr Davis said that good maintenance was critical and could also impact on the number of people that SEARMS can offer properties to.

"If we get a vacant property which needs repairs - and they often do - the quicker we fix it up the quicker we can house another person or family. Then, I feel I've done good," he said.

As well as learning a lot, Mr Davis enjoyed the program immensely, especially meeting the other students who he said all worked closely together and helped each other out.

"I was not the only Aboriginal student. But there were people from many different backgrounds and ethnicities and ages varied from 20 to 70 years old," he said.

SEARMS supplies housing closely aligned with cultural, community and family orientated principles and is a thriving example of practical efforts to 'close the gap'.

SEARMS participated and provided input into the Closing the Gap Housing Sector Strengthening Plan and supported the process with papers on workforce development and training and sustainability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing.

It has played an integral part in the supply and development of Aboriginal housing opportunities in NSW. Currently, SEARMS is one of 25 Aboriginal organisations registered nationally, and 11 registered in NSW, and based on numbers of properties managed, is ranked 65th out of 313 overall providers nationally.

Despite enjoying it, Mr Davis said the cadetship was one of the most stressful things he has done in his life.

"But it was so worth it. I would so vouch for anyone to do it," he said.

Needless to say, he was pleased and excited about his graduation at a gala event to recognise graduates from the program. Hosted by CHIA in Sydney on April 9 the event celebrated 18 graduates from across NSW.

"The graduation was absolutely fantastic! It was such a beautiful meaningful night watching all the cadets graduate. And to hear their success stories on how they have secured full time positions or what their next plans are. Also just seeing everyone and their family was wonderful," Mr Davis said.

The cadetship involves a combination of study and workplace-based paid work over a 12-month period. Each week during the program, Mr Davis spent three days studying and then two days working in the SEARMS office in Batemans Bay.

The program is a partnership between NSW Government and Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) NSW. It provides an opportunity for cadets to commence studying the Certificate IV in Housing while they undertake paid employment for 12-months in application, allocation, tenancy, and asset development with a designated Community Housing Provider.

SEARMS has had four staff complete cadetships and another one commence this year.

CEO Kim Sinclair says this program was addressing Closing the Gap outcomes by providing the critical funding and training supports for Aboriginal Community-Controlled Housing to increase organisation capacity and capabilities.

"The training gave Baeden a really solid knowledge base to bring back to our organisation. We are very proud of him and his commitment to both the cadetship program and his work with SEARMS," she said.