Dr. Gina Merritt - NREUV - The Safety Net

What do a recurring childhood dream and a bulldozer have to do with building community wealth? Everything, if you're Dr. Gina Merritt. In this episode of *Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground*, Molly McCabe and Jill Ferrari sit down with **Dr. Gina Merritt, MBA**: Founder and Principal of **Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures (NREUV)** in Washington, D.C. Gina grew up in affordable housing in the Bronx, lost her mother at thirteen, and helped raise three younger siblings. At sixteen, a conversation with her father set her on the road to independence. On Wall Street she found a pure meritocracy and loved it. But business school changed the question: she no longer wanted to make rich people richer. She sent a résumé to D.C. thinking she was applying to a general contractor. It turned out to be a development opportunity. Asked what would excite her about the job, her answer was immediate: *"If I could build neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. I grew up in affordable housing."* Then came the bulldozer. From roughly age seven to fifteen, Gina had a recurring dream, two or three times a week, of a bulldozer chasing her. On the first day of her first development job, she pulled up to a twelve-acre site, saw the bulldozer, and started crying in her car, not from fear, but from recognition. *"My God, this is what I was supposed to do."* She'd never seen one in real life. She grew up among thirty-story buildings. Her central concept, formalized during her doctorate, is **social capital**, leveraging trusted relationships to connect people to opportunity. And when the job isn't enough, her team becomes **the safety net.** Sustainability, in her definition, is whether a person's life can hold together long enough to reach the opportunity in front of them. Also in this episode: - **Mary's House for Older Adults**: the nation's first communal affordable housing for LGBTQ+ older adults. - **The 2020 inflection**: after twenty years of hearing no, Goldman Sachs and Capital Impact Partners funded her first ownership projects. *"What these investors and lenders were underwriting was not my balance sheet. It was my experience."* - **The $1 billion goal:** $1B in assets under management by 2034. - **Ground Up**, launching December 1, a learning community teaching development at minimal cost. *"If I could do it, a little girl from the Bronx, anybody could do it."* - **Know your numbers**: *"I don't think you're a true owner-developer unless you know how to run your own financial model."* Connect with Dr. Gina Merritt - **Website:** drginamerritt.net - **Ground Up wait list:** community.drginamerritt.net - **Volunteer with Project Community Capital:** projectcommunitycapital.net - **NREUV:** nreuv.com Learn more about *Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground*: https://breakingceilingsbreakingground.com/ Subscribe, follow, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who's building a safety net of their own.