small steps add up in helping vulnerable members of society, says nursing student bill zheng
6 minute read
nursing student bill zheng created radicare ventures, which hires people experiencing homelessness and addiction and offers services such as litter pickup and graffiti removal. zheng was photographed for the changemakers series on monday, may 26, 2025.
gavin young/postmedia
bill zheng’s advice to someone who wants to contribute to their community is to start small.
“a lot of people get the urge to start something,” said the 21-year-old, who has become an advocate for the city’s vulnerable populations. “but i say there’s a lot of value in understanding the problem from a systems-mapping perspective — look where you think you can best use your talent.”
if money could solve every social problem in the city, it already would have, he said. “when you peel down, it’s so complicated. it’s so complex,” he said. “if money could address these complicated issues, then we would have solved it decades ago, because we have been throwing money at it, right?”
the nursing student’s experience began as a teenager, when he took over as the primary care co-ordinator for his mother.
“i didn’t really know how the pockets of the system worked,” he said. “even within the health system, you’ve got home care, in-patient psychiatric care, in-patient general medicine, etc. it was a really convoluted path . . . system navigation was the toughest thing.”
besides advocating for his mother’s health care until her death, zheng tried to find ways to advocate for the homeless community — even going out and handing water bottles to people.
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“i didn’t really know what i was doing, but i started talking to people,” he said.
his later experiences — working with safelink alberta, as a casual staff member at the calgary drop-in centre and in various roles in hospital security — were critical in informing his perspective on living with systemic vulnerabilities.
“to improve the most number of lives, you need to improve the system, right?” he said. “because systems are always constraining people or giving people access.”
the first step is “mapping,” he said. “if you don’t map it, you don’t know where the individual systems are.”
pop-up care village a festival for everyone
it’s a thought that gave rise to the calgary pop-up care village, a once-a-year, one-stop-shop festival where zheng says everyone can visit to receive free and accessible services.
co-founded with hanna woodward in 2022, the festival offers everything from paintings, music, art therapy, tattoos and haircuts, to medical appointments, small treatments and massage therapy — “stuff that is tangible, but people don’t always have access to,” he said.
it’s also about bringing arts, culture and entertainment to a community of people who might often be or feel excluded from enjoying city events — “a festival that they can really go to and not worry about,” zheng said.
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he was emphatic on using the term “festival” to describe the event. imagine a typical summer street festival — a big public space cordoned off from traffic, every corner of it lined with stalls, food trucks, music blaring out of speakers, people roaming with family and friends.
“that’s exactly it,” zheng said.
“we want to become (as big as the) lilac festival or the stampede,” he said, “but completely free for folks who usually can’t access the lilac or stampede.”
nursing student bill zheng created radicare ventures, which hires people experiencing homelessness and addiction and offers services such as litter pickup and graffiti removal. zheng was photographed for the changemakers series on monday, may 26, 2025.
gavin young/postmedia
it’s not a resource fair, he added. “i encourage organizations to come in with actual services they can provide,” he said, whether that be offering low-income applications for people to fill out, preventive medical care, community paramedics or personal grooming.
for organizations that can’t offer a service at the festival, zheng encourages them to bring goodies for visitors. “the idea is they’re not just getting pamphlets, they’re getting something helpful,” he said.
while it’s structured to be accessible to vulnerable populations, zheng said it was never intended to be perceived as only for the homeless. “it’s really going to be a family-friendly event,” he said.
last year’s festival bloomed, with families visiting and kids dancing, enjoying the performers and activities.
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“it’s like we have all these frictions in society between in-house individuals, people with mental health and addiction issues, and the rest of the public is very polarized,” he said.
“but by mixing these groups of people into this one space in a harmonic sense . . . it also allows people to be exposed to one another and broaden their perspective,” he said. “if there are issues that happen, we can deal with them in a controlled setting.”
he found his inspiration in lavamae’s pop-up care villages in san francisco. “it was a very eye-opening experience,” he said.
with the help of a grant from the university of calgary in 2023, he visited san francisco to see the festival in person.
“but little did i know that would be the last one i’d see,” he said. with inadequate funding, the organization announced in june that it would be shutting its doors due to “unprecedented budget shortfalls,” after several funding proposals fell through.
until now, zheng and his team have been relying on a mix of grants and organizational funding. but the news of lavamae spurred action to find a more sustainable revenue model to ensure the calgary festival doesn’t meet the same fate as its san francisco predecessor.
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“that’s where radicare came from,” he said.
radicare ventures co-founders kristen campbell and bill zheng pose with staff, clients and beltline bia representatives at the beltline blox art centre in downtown calgary on thursday, oct. 19, 2023. the company hires homeless people and people who face chronic ’employment barriers’ to do various property maintenance tasks. the employees are referred by the mustard seed.
jim wells/postmedia
radicare ventures offers work to those who need it most
radicare ventures is a for-profit cleaning and safety service company specializing in vulnerable areas. it’s a “social business,” according to its website, which addresses employment barriers by hiring people who struggle to find employment elsewhere.
“we wanted to have radicare be a dual force,” he said. “one, we’re employing people with employment barriers . . . some of the folks that we serve, they’re in recovery and they want to go to work and they don’t have a space to go to work.
“and then the city needs solutions in a more innovative approach. what we do is service some of the more challenging areas in the city — public washrooms, downtown areas where there’s alleyways, where there’s a mix of the vulnerable populations and tenants using office spaces.”
it hasn’t always been smooth sailing; the company currently has 20 employees, some of whom have stayed for more than a year. “but sometimes there’s performance issues we have to manage,” he said. “it’s hard to run a social enterprise balancing profits and people, and the folks we employ have a mixture of learning disabilities, experience homelessness or are in a recovery unit.”
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clients are often concerned about the quality of services the company can provide, but he emphasizes their distinction as a “one-stop-shop model” that offers everything from pressure washing, graffiti removal, litter picking, window washing, and a service that can go into areas with vulnerable populations.
one of his staff members, now a senior team lead, hopes to start his own non-profit and follow in zheng’s footsteps. asked how he feels about being an inspiration to others, zheng replied with a laugh, “it’s terrifying.”
“because i’m such a young age,” he said. “everyone in the company is older than me, so in the beginning it was difficult to navigate. but then i realized everyone has different expertise . . . they’re all just learning as they go.”
it’s a lot to juggle for one person and, for zheng, time management is key. “i think the reason why i keep on running is because of the people i see working right here. sometimes when i’m knee deep in the technical details, i lose touch with that. but when i come here and talk to them, it brings me back into it.
“that’s the true mission of it.”
changemakers, a regular series in the calgary herald, started feb. 25, 2025. read more at calgaryherald.com/changemakers. who are the changemakers you know? if you’re aware of someone making a difference — big or small — in our community, send us a couple of sentences, along with that person’s name, describing why they deserve a public nod. we’ll publish their name, along with your description of why they are a changemaker, at calgaryherald.com. feel free to send along a photo, too, to feedback@calgaryherald.com
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