Jumpstarting a community.

<p><strong><a href= "https://evepicker.com/jumpstarting-a-community/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE.</a></strong></p> <p><strong>Eve Picker:</strong> [00:00:10] Hi there. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Eve:</strong> [00:00:17] My guest today is Ken Weinstein, the CEO of Philly Office Retail, ordinary by name only. Ken has built his company into one that serves the neighborhood it invests in, always tackling underutilized and blighted properties and turning them back to good use. But that's not quite enough for Ken. He launched a boot camp for wannabe developers in his neighborhood, called Jumpstart Germantown. To date, he has trained 850 of them, and a half a dozen other neighborhoods have started their own program using his open source program information. Still not satisfied, Ken has also launched a loan program and lends to developers that cannot get bank financing. He's a powerhouse. Listen in.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Eve:</strong> [00:01:10] Be sure to go to EvePicker.com to find out more about Ken on the show notes page for this episode, and be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform, Small Change.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Eve:</strong> [00:01:35] Welcome to the show, Ken. I'm really eager to talk to you.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Ken Weinstein:</strong> [00:01:38] Thank you, Eve.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Eve:</strong> [00:01:38] You are a very prolific developer by the sounds of it and also a prolific entrepreneur, I really want to hear about everything you're working on. Maybe we could start with your real estate projects. I'm wondering what led you to tackle the very challenging work of restoring vacant and blighted properties?</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Ken:</strong> [00:01:57] Yeah, it's been a passion of mine for over 30 years