Bill Zheng was just finishing his first year of university when he founded his company, hiring vulnerable Calgarians while addressing social disorder and providing compassionate support to those who need it.
Zheng is a third-year nursing student at the University of Calgary and one of the founders of RadiCare Ventures, a company that wants to empower vulnerable Calgarians who are facing barriers to employment. The company tries to foster safe and clean public spaces across the city by revitalizing “troubled areas” through services like public washroom monitoring, graffiti removal and garbage pickup.
After fostering relationships with non-profit organizations and the City of Calgary, RadiCare Ventures was awarded the opportunity to monitor the new public washrooms in the East Village in September. The $345,000 pilot project awarded by the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation will be used to hire two full-time attendants.
“The [social disorder] issue on public properties is popping up everywhere. It’s been a huge conversation since 2022, and it’s continuing to be a main focus across multiple jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S.A. … We really wanted to harness the compassion and the ability of our staff members who comes from [vulnerable] backgrounds to be able to interact with the vulnerable population in a manner that is compassionate but also professional,” Zheng said.
“A lot of cleaning companies don’t really want to go to areas where there’s a lot of encampments, nor do they want to address issues that are happening at shelters because of an inherent discomfort with the population. That’s why we created this company to offer that unique competitive advantage.”
Zheng added his staff have been diligently maintaining the East Village public washrooms to make them accessible to everyone.
“People have been saying on social media that the place will be trashed in a month. I can confidently tell you that this place looks brand new,” he said.
“The goal of the washroom is to replace the existing infrastructure in East Village. The automatic washrooms have already been decommissioned. I feel really proud to be able to support an initiative of that size and be able to have a really big influence on how we run the program. It shows in the way that our staff treats people and we haven’t had lots of serious incidents.”
A passion for helping others
Zheng was always passionate about helping others. He started the Calgary Public Care Village in Grade 11, a festival that brings together dozens of non-profit organizations to provide basic services and resources to vulnerable Calgarians.
He was also an adult care worker at the Calgary Drop-In and a harm reduction outreach worker with SafeLink, where he met people who were recovering from addictions and homelessness but struggling to find work.
His experience working with community organizations and fostering relationships with vulnerable Calgarians inspired him to submit a proposal on how to monitor the East Village public bathrooms last year.
“The reason why I wanted to start a business was because I wanted to solve social issues. I had experience in this sector before I decided that this is the right way to do it,” Zheng said.
His advice for people who want to start a social enterprise or a non-profit organization? Learn about the social disorder issues they want to tackle first and try not to duplicate services. Collaboration is key, he said.
“I spent so much time just being a sponge. I was literally absorbing so much information from so many different stakeholders in the city. I went to different cities in the U.S. and Canada just to learn what they’re doing and how they’re trying to become part of the solution,” Zheng said.
“We knew that we’re not going to stop the issues entirely. Let’s be realistic, none of the interventions I described is going to solve homelessness on a systemic level. But what we can do is provide a very specific, identified target and a space where people experiencing homelessness and other systemic vulnerabilities normally don’t have.”
People who want to start their own business also need to identify issues their clients are facing and the barriers to potential solutions, he said.
“The reason why we’re able to get contracts and compete with the private sector is because we identify our competitive advantage … Right now, the business improvement area has been providing cleaning services. We are aiming to be a one-stop shop. That’s our competitive advantage and no other property management company is doing it quite to the degree that we are,” Zheng said.
“So without talking to your potential ideal customer, you’re not gonna be able to understand what the pain points are, and if you have a misalignment between a solution to a problem, then you’re never gonna pick up contracts. That’s probably the biggest thing I would say to students who want to start a business, is to understand your target customer by really talking to them. Research is great, but talk to them.”
