Her Story
About Heather
I own my own company, Pivot Forward Properties, which I started last fall. I am a 100% female-owned affordable housing developer. We not only develop affordable housing, but we help out other developers, nonprofits, and different entities to be able to figure out ways to create more affordable housing using more grant funds and innovative approaches to put more housing stock in the market faster. I have been doing this line of work as a consultant and contractor for over 15 years. My entry point into this field was through a veterans program, as I have the firm belief that nobody who serves our country should ever be without stable housing. I entered in to start doing a Homeless Veterans Housing Program, but quickly realized that I cannot be client-facing because of how detrimental it is to my mental health. So I learned other ways to be able to still get to the bottom core of creating more housing for more people. When I was sitting in a room with over 25 people and we were going around introducing ourselves and how many low-income housing tax credit builds we had, people were saying this is my first one, this is my second one, and when they got to me, I said this is my 17th. That was the moment I realized maybe I should stop doing it for everybody else and maybe just start doing it for myself.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Heather
01What do you attribute your success to?
I don't do the work to be validated, I do the work because it needs to get done. For me, it's really the clients I have been able to help achieve something more that continues to get me going. You lose some to drug overdose, you lose some to just general sickness, homelessness, pneumonia, cancer, all of those kinds of things. But when you have the one that becomes that success story and they're able to turn their life around, that homeless sandwich is that one small little piece, and being able to create that change in their lives leads to more change in it. That's really what drives me and what I would deem as the foundation of why I did what I did to help others.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Get really thick boots, because there's gonna be a lot of people who grab onto your coattails and try to ride your name and your success. Some of them are gonna be really great and really helpful, and some of them are going to take you as a young woman trying to do something good for the world, and have a lot of anger and anxiety and issues with the fact that this is a very male-dominated field. This is a very male-dominated, very fast-paced money thing, but women think outside the box in this field, and we're not creating it for the money, we're creating housing to be able to help people. So remember what your core line is, and what you're really doing it for, and that's going to keep you going. You don't have to highly sexualize yourself to be in a male-dominated field, and you don't have to push your boundary to be able to be accepted. You just have to be able to see who else is out there doing it. You might not be accepted because you were meant to do it on your own and create the way to be successful and fit in.
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