VIDA’s Innovative Business Model: 4 Pillars

VIDA’s purpose is to revolutionize affordable communities. Since 2018, VIDA has grown from  one 12-unit building in Halifax to around 3,000 units in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, and Manitoba.

VIDA delivers socially responsible affordable workforce housing. Using creative solutions, VIDA strives to improve social, economic, and health outcomes by providing security, cleanliness, opportunity, and a sense of community to our tenants (who we treat as "customers").

● Safety & Security: The safety of our customers is paramount. VIDA upgrades entranceway and in-suite security systems at its properties and revitalizes perimeter and common area lighting to ensure customer peace of mind. Vandalism and disorder is discouraged by investing in curb appeal and repairing any visible signs of damage at our properties.


● Cleanliness: VIDA is committed to providing our customers with a clean place to call home. We encourage our customers to contribute to the cleanliness of the properties and educate them on how doing so will keep rents low. We go one step further by engaging residents of the building to clean and maintain our properties, thereby fostering pride in ownership and offering a chance to offset rent. It is critical to our success that customers are proud to call their VIDA community "home"!


● Opportunity at VIDA: Opportunity is one of the cornerstones of individual and community success. At VIDA, we open doors and build pathways to help our customers get ahead in life. Building Ambassadors develop valuable management skills and are offered access to personal and professional coaching, financial literacy seminars, technology training, painting workshops, carpentry workshops, and much more—in short, VIDA aims to create new opportunities in work and in life for our BAs. Tenants are offered the  right of first refusal on basic repair and maintenance projects and given the opportunity to participate in the overall business through tasks like data entry, rent collection, community newsletters, and cleaning. VIDA celebrates tenants' achievements by offering rewards such as rent credits for starting a business or receiving a promotion and VIDA will pay off the last $500 of a tenant's student loan, break the lease, and help cover moving costs for tenants who buy a home.


● Community & Healthy Living: We believe that the safe, clean, community-based ecosystem at a VIDA property improves customer health, education, and employment outcomes. The network of relationships and social support that we aim to cultivate in every VIDA building has observable benefits to our customers' overall picture of physical and mental health. VIDA implements survey-based studies to measure these positive outcomes among our customer base.


Building Ambassadors


In our pursuit to revolutionize affordable communities, VIDA offers a focused approach to the upkeep of residential buildings and customer relationships. We have dedicated Building Ambassadors who manage the day-to-day operations of our buildings: forging strong relationships with tenants, completing minor repair and maintenance tasks, managing tenants moving in and out, and focusing on a small number of units. Our team of Building Ambassadors are empowered to represent VIDA’s 4 pillars of Safety & Security, Cleanliness, Community and Opportunity.


Environmental Stewardship & Sustainability


Unlike other industry participants, sustainability is embedded in our core business strategy. VIDA is laser focused on acquiring and maintaining older multifamily buildings; new development will never be as environmentally friendly or as affordable as the preservation and upgrade of existing stock. Simple solutions like energy-efficient appliances and efficiency upgrades as well as more nuanced solutions like artificial intelligence monitoring unlock new ways to reduce environmental impacts and use resources responsibly. 

VIDA’s business model is intentionally designed to serve each and every local community in which VIDA operates. 100% of VIDA’s customers are local and call VIDA “home”! Further, VIDA aims to exclusively use local suppliers when doing so would help us on our mission to revolutionize affordable communities.

Lastly, to help foster our residents’ financial sustainability we’ve partnered with Zenbase to offer flexible rent payments that enable easier budgeting and decrease financial stress on the first of the month.

BA Journey Interviews