Social Enterprise Alliance Podcast · Social Enterprise Alliance

Prioritizing Equity and Inclusion in Real Estate with Gina Merritt - Ep 45

·25 min·2 clips

Gina Merritt achieves 94-98% job retention by finding overlooked workers others miss.

Dr. Gina Merritt, founder of Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures and Project Community Capital, joins the Social Enterprise Alliance podcast to discuss embedding equity in real estate. With 26 years of experience developing over 8,200 housing units, Merritt explains how her work evolved to address systemic employment barriers. Her initial focus was affordable housing development, but she grew frustrated with contractors failing to meet socioeconomic hiring goals for publicly funded projects. This led her to create Project Community Capital, a platform that vets and connects people from low-income communities to jobs. The platform interviews hundreds of candidates to find overlooked individuals who are ready to work, achieving 94% to 98% retention rates on construction projects. Merritt redesigned the model using Stanford's collective impact framework, partnering with nonprofits to provide supportive services for those not yet job-ready. The initiative has expanded beyond construction to general employment, leveraging "high-value social capital" from Merritt's network to open doors for candidates. A key insight is the direct link between employment and mental health, prompting the organization to integrate healthcare services into its support. Merritt describes disrupting systems like inefficient government referral processes that place unprepared individuals, leading to short-term employment. She advocates for governments to partner with social enterprises for better vetting and support. The organization also provides immediate, personalized aid, such as transportation assistance or debt payment, to prevent individuals from falling through systemic cracks. One memorable story involves intervening when a client's entire bank account was seized by child support due to poor inter-agency communication. Merritt emphasizes that targeted, short-term financial help can permanently change a person's trajectory, noting many clients receive multiple raises within their first year. Her real estate firm now includes Project Community Capital implementation as a standard line item in its $600 million project portfolio. The tone is conversational, educational, and driven by personal narrative, blending professional expertise with grassroots advocacy. Listeners interested in systemic change, affordable housing, and innovative workforce development will find this episode compelling. Those seeking highly technical real estate finance discussions or skeptical of blending social services with development might find it less relevant.

As heard by us

A practical look at how real estate, work, and disconnected systems collide.

The episode treats equity and inclusion in real estate as a day to day operating problem, not a slogan. Gina Merritt comes across as the founder of Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures, with more than 26 years in development, finance, construction, and asset management, plus work…

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Why you'd press play

If you want real estate leadership tied to housing, jobs, and the systems around them, start here.

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