“My last big step at the city was when I came here and started the Office of Homelessness and we started that from scratch–it was a brand new office, we had to write policies, we had to build relationships, we had to set up everything brand new with no prior infrastructure–and that’s what we’re doing here.”Lexington Commissioner of Housing Advocacy and Community Development Charlie Lanter
Charlie Lanter worked on housing-related issues with the Community Action Council before directing the city’s Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention. His new role consolidates that division and five others: Affordable Housing; Code Enforcement; Community and Resident Services; Grants and Special Programs; and Historic Preservation.
“[Now] that we’ve got all those under one roof, my job is to bring those divisions together and improve communication and figure how how we can work together, so that, for example, if a citizen is struggling to keep up their home and is having trouble with code enforcement, then we’re able to connect them with other resources in the city–like in the Grants division or the Community and Resident Services division–we can help them with responding to that so that they’re not going to lose their home, for example, over a code violation.”Lexington Commissioner of Housing Advocacy and Community Development Charlie Lanter
Lanter says recommendations from the Housing Subcommittee of the Racial Justice and Equality Commission spoke to improving communication and transparency with citizens when it comes to housing. He strives to meet that need, saying that safe, quality, affordable housing isn’t just a roof over a family’s head, but a path to better health, education, and economic outcomes.
