Real estate — and property management – are second nature to Ned Skanchy. As a young boy, he helped manage his father’s real estate properties by mowing lawns and keeping residences clean. Now, twenty years later, Ned is a partner at the high-end Urban Hive Properties, a real estate company based in Sugar House that offers boutique-style living experiences for Salt Lake City’s best urban areas.
Because of his position as a property manager, Ned is no stranger to the issue of homelessness around Salt Lake City. He struggled with the balance between helping his residents feel safe on his properties and respecting Salt Lake City’s homeless as individuals in need. He had an itch to do something to help — so he called a friend, Scott Howell, who he knew was working on the issue of homelessness in Salt Lake City, and simply asked what he could do. Scott mentioned The Other Side Village, a housing community designed to help homeless individuals reconnect with society and themselves.
The game-changer, Ned said, was when he learned about the already existing The Other Side Academy and their core values. He took a tour for himself, and was blown away by what the Academy had accomplished.
Ned firmly believes that following the pattern of The Other Side Village is “our best bet.” With his experiences with the Academy, he’s realized that it’s not about “changing homelessness” — it’s about changing the lives of the homeless for the better, using a technique that not many people attempting to solve the issue of homelessness think about: entrepreneurship.
Being an entrepreneur is about solving problems. The Other Side Academy uses entrepreneurship in their system to fund their cause and to also give their students much-needed jobs. This system has been so successful that the Academy plans to follow the same model in their Village. Ned, and many others that work with the Village, know that this model could revolutionize the way we help the homeless.
That’s not the only way entrepreneurship is aiding the development of The Other Side Village. Ned, who is now on the development committee for the Village, is taking advantage of his own opportunities as an entrepreneur by challenging his Urban Hive residents to donate to the cause. Urban Hive pledges to match every dollar put towards the Village up to $30,000. But Ned doesn’t want to stop there. He challenges every other property manager in Salt Lake City to offer the same challenge. Because he believes in the power of community as much as he believes in the power of entrepreneurship.
“If we keep doing the same thing we’ve done before, we’ll get what we always got,” he explained. The Academy’s methods were a wild success — and with the community’s help, the Village will be a success, too.
If you want to help build The Other Side Village, click here to donate.