Your New (affordable) Home & Your Good (affordable) Health

Ask anyone in Louisiana, or any other state, and they’ll tell you
that two of the greatest problems today facing the average
American are access to affordable housing and access to quality
affordable healthcare.


Despite billions in federal funding and policies intended to
help, the need continues to grow.


On this episode of Out to Lunch, Stephanie talks with two local
entrepreneurs who are taking matters into their own hands to fill
the void and make things better.


Wendy Green Daniels is President and CEO of Beechwood
Residential, a Baton Rouge-based real estate development and
consulting firm that specializes in multifamiy affordable
housing. Wendy founded the firm in 2012, with a mission to
enhance the lives of residents and revitalize communities through
the creation of high-quality, socially impactful housing.


Before venturing out on her own, Wendy, who grew up in Baton
Rouge, spent more than a decade learning the ropes from other
successful nonprofits, including Mercy Housing and Columbia
Residential in Atlanta. Over the years she has overseen the
development of more than 4,500 mixed-income housing units.


Sandrine Nkouga is the founder and CEO of the El Shaddai Family
Clinic, a new primary care clinic in Prairieville that
specializes in family medicine and also treats patients for
behavioral health issues, weight management and chronic disease.


Sandrine is a native of Cameroon, Africa, who came to the US as a
young child and grew up in Virginia. She received her doctorate
in nursing from Touro University in Nevada, and after moving here
with her family for her husband's career, opened her Louisiana
clinic in 2023 to help address the demand for more primary care
providers and to make it easier for uninsured or underinsured
patients to receive quality care.


Wendy and Sandrine's businesses are both great examples of a
recent trend in business, a kind of for-profit activism. These
types of businesses combine entrepreneurship and social activism,
harnessing the power of the capitalist economy for the good of
all of the community, not just the wealthy, powerful, or
fortunate. 


Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs On the
Boulevard.


You can find photos form this show by Ian Ledo and Miranda
Albarez at itsbatonrouge.la.


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