Flipping The Hood, a two-day grassroots real estate and economic empowerment event, took place at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on May 9 and 10. Led by actor-turned-developer Dr. Malik Yoba, the second annual holding of this event provided participants with opportunities for business networking, informational sessions, and a few guided spiritual regroundings. Local high school students were able to attend because of the tickets purchased by event-goers.
The conference took place on the top floor of a renovated building in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard. Yoba said he had first visited the site in 2022 and, although the space was only sparsely arranged with chairs and tables at that time, he thought it was beautiful. “The minute I walked in and saw this view, it was a sunny day; I saw this view of New York City that I had never seen before. You got Brooklyn, you got Queens, you got Manhattan. And the first thing I thought was, ‘I want to turn this place into something that looks like a penthouse. And I want to create space. I want people who have never had the opportunity to be in these fabulous spaces to walk into some place and go, ‘I want to live here. This is how I want to live.’”
Flipping The Hood featured presentations and talks by Tawan Davis, CEO of the $500 million-dollar real estate company, The Steinbridge Group; media personality Angela Yee; Brooklyn Nets Assistant Coach Juwan Howard; Tammy Jones of Basis Investment Group; Karine Apollon, the New York City Department of Education’s Chief Diversity Officer; and actress Naturi Naughton-Lewis.
Even in the large layout of the conference space, the event maintained a small get-together feel with participants being encouraged to greet one another. The actor-developer Yoba said he has been working on community-based development ideas since he was a teenager. Even when he was at the height of his acting career, real estate and development remained his main interests. “Being able to create space and bring people together,” he said, “I’m 57 years old; I’ve been doing this since I was a 10-year-old. People see me post and talk about development, and talk about love and creation, because I claimed I was going to be a millionaire when I was a kid. And I made millions of dollars. The largest transaction I ever made, the largest check I ever got, was in real estate. Not film, not TV. But buying more undervalued property on the Upper West Side of Central Park for $220,000 and selling for just under a million. That was my first real estate transaction. And I was like, ‘I’m staying in this long term.’”
For more information about Flipping the Hood, visit: https://yobadevelopment.com/events/fromthegroundup/