Franz Gehriger introduced our newest member, Cherie White, CEO & Founder of Steadfast Developments. Cherie, our newest Rotarian having been inducted into our club this last June, is an award winning, passionate, visionary when it comes to social justice and business. She has been nominated for the social justice RBC women’s impact award for 3 years in a row, and won REIN’s (Real Estate Investor Network) renovator of the year award in 2017. As a resident of Canada’s poorest postal code, Vancouver’s downtown eastside, Steadfast Developments was created out of a dissatisfaction of accessible affordable housing for people in the recovery community. She chooses to live in a community home that reaches out to its neighbors and offers shelter, sharing of meals, and mentorship programs for women entrepreneurs. Her unique business model comes from her background in social justice through the Salvation Army. She believes that in order to have success in our lives we need a family, a home, and a job.
Cherie has been working in real estate for 5 years. She started fixing and flipping residential homes from 2016-2019. In late 2019 she moved into multi-family commercial developments with the idea of building healthy and positive communities while building using an environmentally friendly building product, mass timber. Her goal is to build all developments as passive homes and leave a positive impact on the environment.
Cherie has been married to her husband Aaron for 23 years and has raised their four children in the downtown east side of Vancouver with the hope that they will know and see first hand what it means to “love thy neighbor.”
Cherie expressed that it is wonderful to have the opportunity to share her passion and story with us all. She has learned through her dealings with first nations peoples that you do not ask what they do, rather ask where they are from. Taking this same approach, Cherie shared a little about her own heritage. She was born into the salvation army and was raised by her family within it. Thus, her whole being is rooted in social justice. Her sense of what is right and what is wrong is very strongly ingrained. Her husband is also from a Salvation Army family.
In 2020, Cherie started Steadfast Developments dealing with multi family developments. It is a holistic social justice land company; all about collaboration vs gentrification. With a focus on at-risk women and families, working on a 5-10 year vision for the area. One of the philosophies, people, planet, profit, in that order. Who better to lead than someone who has lived in the area for 20+ years and raised their family there?
The priority is to develop a family-like atmosphere for the area. Provide rent to own homes for families thus encouraging them to stay long term.
The ultimate wish is to end poverty. Cherie has studied examples from around the globe, and has followed 15 other successful social developers. For example, James Rouse, in Columbia US in the 1960s where 50% of his developments were reserved exclusively for black population. In Columbia’s autobiography there is a 30 second clip where someone who benefitted from his work stated, “Because of what James Rouse did, because he allowed us to own property, we are no longer poor.”
Majora Carter is another positive example, a black women developer in New York. At the time the thing to do was to burn down your house to get the insurance, receiving more than it was worth. She revitalized one area where people started to stay, ending the transient nature of the neighbourhood.
It is important to look at ending poverty through a community lens versus one of profit. Ending poverty is happening worldwide through a pod system, small communities where people belong and take care of each other.
When looked at the 15 mentor projects, there are 6 main threads common among them:
- Affordable but needed to be mixed model
- Social enterprise
- Parks and rec
- Health and wellness
- Intentional community
- Arts
We must ask why the efforts to date have not made a significant impact on the community. The work has been great but has only focused on one, or at best, a couple of the above-mentioned threads. It is evident given the successful projects versus unsuccessful that we need all of the above 6 components.
It is important to know that as of March 2020, the stats from Vancouver were:
- 457 people unsheltered
- 1,548 people sheltered
- 52% of all homelessness is in the downtown eastside
- 70% of homeless are chronically homeless – homeless for 6 months or more
Japan has a model, The Woven City. Based on Toyota – what tech can be used to build a holistic community.
CLICK HERE for more info about this innovative project.
A key factor in the development projects is using mass timber. It is cheaper in the long run, faster to build with, and stronger material. Noting that 40% of the emissions is the world is from concrete developments. Also traditional development construction is a large contributor to landfill, whereas with timber they use only one waste container.
What does Cherie’s vision look like on the downtown eastside? They have 10 sites in view:
- The sanctuary, coastal health owns it but have done nothing with it.
- The Gaderian – two properties Steadfast will own as of December. It includes the Powell Street Clinic owned by Coastal Health, and another spot the city owns. It will keep a health clinic & commercial on the 1st floor, a daycare on the 2nd floor, community living w/ kitchens on the 3rd floor, and living space above.
- The Pheonix. Currently a chicken factory. The property right beside it is already under contract, hoping this property will be as well.
- The old Army and Navy building. Looking at it for a school and grocery store.
- Crab Park Project (The Fish). It is the real heart for First Nations peoples. It is to be intergenerational housing and a healing centre.
- The Chapel Arts. To be an arts centre with affordable housing for artists. Also to keep the theatre.
- Openheimer Community Centre and Reconcilation of land.
- The Regent and Balmoral Hotel. Want to reconstruct for family housing. Buildings will require a lot of work to bring to code.
- The Makerspace on Alexander St. Using the successful model Every One Every Day in London UK as an example for this space.
- The Office at Pigeon Park. To be used as Steadfast’s home office base.
If Steadfast Developments’ work is of interest to you, how can you get involved? There are a number of ways you can be part of our work:
- Friends of Steadfast Developments, do not need $$, only help with written support.
- Volunteer Resources, perhaps you or someone you know has some clout to help.
- Volunteer Finances, social impact investors are always welcome. Investors who are not looking for huge returns quickly, but rather are looking for a large social return.
Additionally, per Steadfast’s website:
- Investors. We are looking to partner long term with investors aligned with our vision, who are as keen as us to see significant social impact happen in real estate!
- Contractors. We are always interested in connecting with contractors who value and pioneer ecologically friendly and energy efficient methods in their trade.
- Brain Trust. We continually seek to expand our diversity and welcome people into our brain trust to help us expand our vision and uncover new ways to reach our goals.
- Non-Profits. We want to hear from non-profits who are interested in partnering in place in our developments to build community infrastructure and support.
- Innovators. We believe there are more possibilities than we are aware of in terms of design, materials, methods of construction, and more! We’d love to hear from people on the cutting edge of all that is new!
Cherie will provide an update on Steadfasts work in a year or so.
