Linda Mancini’s Canadian mother and grandmother both knew how to swing a hammer and use a saw. As a young artist, she came to NYC in the 1970’s and together with her then husband, built her own loft apartment during the homesteader movement on the city’s Lower East Side. Today, she works as a realtor whose mission is to help artists and others find affordable real estate in a city increasingly unaffordable to all but the highest earners.