Charles (Chuck) White has been primarily a business owner in the construction and development field for 40+ years. He originally specialized in water and sewer utility construction for municipal governments throughout the states of Florida and Georgia. His firm worked with the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority installing high pressure water transmission lines from the Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon south to Key West including 14 bridge crossings.
His firm also worked for the USN installing fueling lines at Key West Naval Station and Kings Bay, Georgia. He oversaw the installation of fiber optic transmission lines running from Mobile, Alabama to Jacksonville and from Jacksonville to Atlanta for MCI and AT&T respectively.
For the past 20 plus years he has specialized in residential subdivision development in St. Lucie, Orlando and particularly in Tallahassee. As well, he has worked in the real estate field of industrial development in the Atlanta area.
For the past 25 years, he has worked as a volunteer in the field of homelessness, first preparing meals then working more directly with those folks experiencing homelessness through the Good News organization in Tallahassee.
He was a board member of Good News Outreach from 1997 to 2011, serving as Chairman and President of the BOD for approximately 8 years. During this tenure, he established the Mercy House program oriented to male ex offenders, Mission Oak SRO Apartments for formerly homeless men, and built Maryland Oaks Crossing, a fifty unit mobile home residential campus oriented to formerly homeless families with children.
In 2011 he teamed with Rick Kearney to establish the Renaissance Community Center adjacent to the Tallahassee Leon Shelter, Tallahassee’s largest homeless facility. The RCC provided daytime services to homeless individuals and families and served as the primary intake facility for the Tallahassee region. The RCC brought together, under one roof, most all of the agencies and organizations in Tallahassee that provide services to folks experiencing homelessness. This undertaking proved highly successful in rapidly and efficiently delivering appropriate services to those in need.
In 2012, he spearheaded the development of Westgate Community Residential Campus, a private gated subdivision that is designed to provide low cost housing for vulnerable, formerly homeless individuals and families in a rooming house format. The building designs provided for 10 large rooms/bathrooms in each with a common kitchen and living area. The total structures are approved for up to 40 individuals. This type of development was new to Tallahassee and required a special PUD designation.
Beginning in August, 2013, he worked as a member of a small, select group of community representatives to design and build a state-of-the-art homeless facility that allowed for the co-location of approximately 45 agencies and organizations, including residential services for adult men and women, all under one roof. He spearheaded the research and design of the facility and oversaw construction and development for this group until the Kearney Center opened in April, 2015. He worked with funding partners to formalize relationships that provided the necessary capital to complete the facility. He continues to seek funding partners for operations at the Kearney Center.
He has served as a board member of Good News Outreach and Bond Community Health Center and as a member of several health care related panels addressing the medical needs of low income individuals and families. He currently serves on the board of the Big Bend Continuum of Care addressing the needs of our region’s homeless.
He is currently spearheading the design of new SRO (Single Residential Occupancy) buildings for the Westgate Community Residential Campus that will offer 20 bedroom efficiency type apartments each for very low income individuals. He continues as managing general partner in a few for-profit real estate oriented partnerships.