Longtime multifamily real estate developer John Stewart died Sept. 5 after a two-year battle with cancer, announced The John Stewart Co. (JSCo). He was 86.

John Stewart
John Stewart

He founded his San Francisco-based firm 42 years ago and built thousands of units of affordable housing during his lengthy career. A Renaissance man, Stewart filled each room he entered with energy and laughter.

He incorporated JSCO with three employees and oversaw the firm’s growth to more than 1,000 employees and a management portfolio exceeding 20,000 units in over 250 properties, primarily in Northern California. The company is the largest manager of affordable housing in California and the sixth largest in the nation.

Over the years, JSCo teamed with many nonprofit organizations and public agencies to create partnerships to develop or preserve affordable housing. The company’s projects include the award-winning Hunters View Phase 1, an ambitious redevelopment of a San Francisco public housing project.

Stewart continued to be involved in the firm’s deals until the final days of his life.

Prior to starting JSCo, Stewart was an officer of a TRW-owned subsidiary that developed public and Department of Housing and Urban Development-assisted and insured housing. He served as a member of the Advisory Committee on Low- and Moderate-Income Housing to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) commissioner in Washington, D.C., and in 1988 received a presidential appointment to the board of directors of the National Cooperative Bank. While at the bank, Stewart served as chairman of its development corporation, which makes focused loans to low-income housing, medical, and agricultural cooperatives.

He also served on multiple nonprofit boards throughout his career, including the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California (NPH), Mercy Housing, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, the National Housing Conference, and San Francisco Planning and Urban Research.

Stewart was a proud graduate of Stanford University, where he played football and track.

Here is a link to an obituary on the SFGate site.

A celebration of life will happen post pandemic. In lieu of flowers. the family has asked people to please consider a donation in Stewart's memory to one of the housing groups that mattered to him: Mercy Housing, NPH, or LIIF.