Vesi’s model is built to respond to real market conditions and pressures while staying focused on long-term community benefit. To do this, we operate across two complementary tracks (our 80/20 Portfolio Rule) that help stabilize neighborhoods and generate the resources needed for long-term stewardship:

• Track 1: Stewarded Assets (80%): This track focuses on stability and long-term care. It includes shared-ownership homes, impact leasing, and other protected uses that prioritize affordability, predictability, and staying rooted. These assets are stewarded to serve residents, local businesses, and community needs over time, insulating them from short-term market pressure and speculation.

• Track 2: Market-Engaged (20%): This track engages directly with the market to respond to demand and generate resources. Market-rate leases and sales provide options for people and businesses seeking flexibility or immediate access. The value created through this activity is reinvested to support protected homes, long-term care of properties, and shared-ownership opportunities elsewhere in the portfolio.

Together, these tracks allow Vesi to meet people where they are, respond to the market without displacement, and keep value circulating back into neighborhoods.

Vesi works across a range of neighborhood-serving assets, including:

• Homes for individuals and families

• Commercial spaces for small and local businesses

• Cultural, civic, and gathering places

• Mixed-use and community-serving properties

For homes held within the stewardship model, Vesi offers a flexible shared ownership approach that allows households to enter at a level that fits their circumstances and increase their stake over time. Residents are assigned a set number of ownership shares connected to their home and the broader property.

Instead of purchasing a home at full market price, residents hold a meaningful ownership stake (such as a 45% Class B share position in our Perdicaris pilot, with the remaining obligation carried by patient capital and reserves). This helps bypass growing barriers like exorbitant down payments, high interest rates, limited access to rehabilitation financing, and the challenges of bringing aging or deteriorated homes back to safe, livable condition.

Some residents may choose to purchase their full share from the start. Others may begin with a smaller portion and expand their ownership gradually as their situation changes. This step-by-step approach makes it possible to build long-term security without taking on the full cost of a home all at once.

Today’s housing costs didn’t happen by accident. The way homes are owned and how much people pay in rent has been shaped over time by market forces, public policies, and investment decisions. As prices rise and rents increase, many families find themselves working harder just to stay in place, with fewer opportunities to build stability or ownership.

Homes that once supported long-term living are now shaped by forces that make it harder for everyday people to stay or get ahead. Wages and incomes have not kept pace with rising housing costs, while speculation and outside investment have driven prices up. At the same time, many communities lack the financial tools needed to repair and bring back vacant or dilapidated properties, often because appraisals and lending standards don’t reflect the real value or potential of these homes.

At Vesi, shared ownership is one way we respond to these challenges. It creates a path for people to build stability and ownership over time, while protecting homes so they remain available to future households.

As an occupant owner in a Vesi home, you pay a monthly share loan payment toward your ownership shares, along with a monthly maintenance fee that covers your portion of the home’s ongoing costs, including taxes, insurance, maintenance, and long-term care. Your costs are predictable and shared, as in a cooperative model of homeownership.

Unlike renting, your payments help you build ownership in the home. If you choose to move, you recoup what you’ve paid for your ownership shares, along with equity gains anchored by a stable, predictable return floor of 1.5% annual growth. This steady foundation ensures a reliable return on your investment while keeping the home permanently protected and affordable for the next household.

Vesi’s model recognizes that some people may not want or need ownership, or may want to support Vesi’s mission in other ways. We integrate these realities with intention by capturing the value created through leasing and sales in ways that circulate back into people and neighborhoods through:

• Impact Leasing: Residential impact leasing includes long-term homes alongside shorter stays for students or visiting professionals without pushing out long-term residents. Commercial impact leasing supports local and community-serving businesses through fair, supportive lease terms that help them stay rooted.

• Market-Rate Leases and Sales: When individuals and businesses choose Vesi’s homes, storefronts, or workspaces, they’re doing more than securing a place—they’re helping direct resources back into the community. The value generated is reinvested to support affordability, long-term care of properties, and shared-ownership homes elsewhere in the portfolio.

Vesi protects neighborhood assets through a sophisticated, multi-layered governance and legal structure that prevents mission drift in perpetuity:

• The 501(c)(3) Nonprofit (Vesi Neighborhood Corporation): Acts as the charitable stewardship anchor, deploying grants, Program-Related Investments (PRIs), and mission-aligned capital.

• Property LLCs (Asset Pools): Individual real estate assets sit within property-specific LLCs, isolating legal and financial risk asset-by-asset. Within these LLCs, ownership is organized into specific classes (e.g., Class A mission control, Class B occupant shares, Class C trust oversight).

• The Perpetual Purpose Trust (PPT): A dedicated trustee layer that holds oversight, enforcement, and consent rights to protect the mission in perpetuity. Properties within the PPT are protected from market realities like speculation and high cost increases, so they can continue to serve residents, businesses, and neighborhoods well into the future.

• The Public Benefit Corporation (PBC): A mission-locked corporate vehicle handles market-facing development, legally binding 100% of commercial gains to advance Vesi’s public benefit mission.

To satisfy institutional donors and foundation guidelines, Vesi tethers charitable capital to public benefit through four strict legal guardrails:

1. Purpose Restrictions: The 501(c)(3) restricts all deployment of grant capital strictly to charitable uses (acquisition, stabilization, rehabilitation, and reserves).

2. Restricted-Use Agreements: Written project funding agreements legally bind property LLCs to approved charitable outcomes.

3. Mission-Locked Ownership: The 501(c)(3) and Perpetual Purpose Trust hold mission-control and governance rights, preventing assets or value from being redirected away from the community.

4. Local Reinvestment Mandate: Surplus revenues are legally mandated to cycle back into the nonprofit to deepen housing affordability.

Vesi’s architecture is built upon rigorous legal engineering and national best practices. Our operating structure and compliance pathways have been backed and vetted by major institutional support, including a $500,000 General Operating Support grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Crucially, Vesi leveraged this investment into more than $500,000 in pro bono legal, financial, design, and strategic expertise—partnering with specialized legal teams to design a phase-one structure that proves our financial architecture before maturing into a REIT. We also build directly upon proven national frameworks like the Kensington Corridor Trust, UHAB, Trust Neighborhoods, and nearly a century of limited-equity cooperative housing history.