Changemaker Charlie Wesche, Chief Executive Officer, Neighborworks Lincoln

Affordable housing is one of the most complex challenges facing communities today—and it requires more than a single solution.

In this episode of Agency for Change, Charlie Wesche, CEO of NeighborWorks Lincoln, shares how his team is expanding access to homeownership through education, new construction, and Prairie Roots Community Land Trust, a shared equity model designed to keep homes permanently affordable.

From generational impact to energy-efficient rental rehabs featured in the New York Times, this conversation explores what practical, community-driven innovation looks like on the ground.

Listen for insight on housing stability, equity, and the leadership required to build lasting change.

Connect with Charlie and Neighborworks Lincoln at: 

Neighborworks Lincoln 

o   Website – https://nwlincoln.org/

o   Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/nwlincoln/

o   Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/neighborworkslincoln/

Prairie Roots Community Land Trust 

o   Website – https://prairierootsclt.org/

Transcript

Connect with Charlie and Neighborworks Lincoln at: 

• Neighborworks Lincoln 
  • Website – https://nwlincoln.org/
  • Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/nwlincoln/
  • Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/neighborworkslincoln/
• Prairie Roots Community Land Trust 
  • Website – https://prairierootsclt.org/

Charlie Wesche: 0:00

Embrace chaos.

Announcer: 0:04

Welcome to Agency for Change, a podcast from KidGlov that brings you the stories of change makers who are actively working to improve our community. In every episode, we'll meet with people who are making a lasting impact in the places we call homes.

Lyn Wineman: 0:29

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Agency for Change podcast. This is Lyn Wineman, president and chief strategist of KidGlov. I want to start today with a question. What if affordable housing didn't just help the first family, but the next one and the next? Today's guest, Charlie Wesche, CEO of Neighborworks Lincoln, is rethinking what long-term stability really looks like, from permanently affordable homeownership to energy efficient homes that lower costs and strengthen neighborhoods. The work is practical, it's people first, and it's even earning some national attention. So if you're curious what real innovation in housing looks like on the ground, you are going to enjoy this conversation. Charlie, welcome to the podcast.

Charlie Wesche : 1:22

Thanks, Lyn. Thanks for having me on this afternoon.

Lyn Wineman: 1:26

I am really looking forward to talking to you. And I'd love to have you just start by telling us a bit more about Neighborworks Lincoln.

Charlie Wesche : 1:36

Yeah, of course. So Neighborworks Lincoln, we're actually celebrating our 40th anniversary. Serving the city of Lincoln. so 40 years, nonprofit serving Lincoln. We've primarily  well, first of all, we're a community housing development organization. so we we have what we refer to as kind of the three-legged stool. We have three programs that we currently operate. Our bread and butter is really our homeownership program. So working with first-time home buyers to provide down payment assistance,  to remove the barrier of that big, that big chunk of cash that's needed to purchase a home. within our real estate development program area, we we build new homes, we rehab existing homes, and then sell those to first-time homebuyers that are low to moderate income. And then our community building and engagement department,  they're the ones that are out pounding the pavement, talking to neighbors, building resident capacity, attending neighborhood meetings, and and really just kind of tying all of the work that we do together.

Lyn Wineman: 2:48

Charlie, I love those three programs and that three-legged stool analogy. And really what I hear you saying here is you are helping people get into homes and into quality homes. So this must all be about long-term stability.

Charlie Wesche : 3:09

Yeah, absolutely.

Lyn Wineman: 3:11

So tell me more, what does your definition of success look like then for Neighborworks Lincoln?

Charlie Wesche : 3:18

I think one of the one of the statistics that we like to hang our hat on. So we in our homeownership program, we're working exclusively with low to moderate income first-time home buyers.  in in the housing world, that usually means people at about 80% of median income or below. And we we couple our down payment assistance with home buyer education on the front end. So one of the stats that we like to brag about is that in the 40 years of Neighborworks existence, we have a 0.6% default rate. 

Lyn Wineman: 3:53

Wow 0.6%. That's pretty low. How does that compare to national averages?

Charlie Wesche : 4:01

I I think the national average is more in the four to seven percent range. Don't quote me on that, but it's considerably lower.  and I think a lot of the a lot of that goes back to that that education piece that we do on the front end, helping people understand the idea of homeownership, budgeting, the financial counseling that goes with it.  but then also I think when clients are buying an existing home, we couple that with a rehab scope that as they're purchasing, we're inspecting the home and we do any major types of rehab. So if there's a new roof or a new furnace that needs to go in, we're taking care of that large expense on the front end so that they don't have to deal with it a couple of years into their homeowner.

Lyn Wineman: 4:50

Yeah. You know, it's been a few years since I bought my first home with along with my husband. And I can still remember back, even though it was a long time ago, we felt like we were pretty educated and we, you know, we both had been working for a few years and been saving money, but I have to admit, there were a few surprises. And for something as big as home ownership, it's pretty, it's pretty significant stakes when you're surprised, right?

Charlie Wesche : 5:21

Yeah, absolutely. There's always things that surprise and kind of come out of the woodwork and and surprise you on the once you become a homeowner. I always think it's it's fun working with first-time homebuyers because they have they wanna they want to do all the fun stuff with their with their home. They want to repaint and they want to potentially renovate the kitchen or whatever it might be. And it it never fails sometimes. That gets sidetracked a little bit a couple of years because they have to deal with some of the the not so fun stuff.

Lyn Wineman: 5:54

Yeah, the boring stuff like the roof and the water heater and the things like that. Absolutely. So if you read the news these days, it seems to me like just from news reports, home ownership is becoming maybe less of a reality for people in in these current economic times. I'm curious how have things changed since you've been at Neighborworks.

Charlie Wesche : 6:20

Yeah, so I I started at Neighborworks. I've been here about eight years.  so it's spanned when I started here,  just to to kind of put some some real figures to this. When I started at Neighborworks, it was pretty common that a first-time homebuyer could buy a $60,000 starter home.

And we we did some rehab, and then they had a mortgage payment that pretty much matched their rent payment.

Lyn Wineman: 6:46

Was that just eight years ago? Because that number seems pretty unattainable today.

Charlie Wesche : 6:52

It's wild, isn't it? And so now we have, I mean, we've gone through this cycle where home values have really skyrocketed.  and I think coupled along with that, we've seen the last several years, we've seen changes in the interest rate market.  we've seen changes in the insurance market due to disasters happening all across the country. And all of those things really are stacked against home buyers.  and I think particularly like maybe more so towards first-time homebuyers that don't have a lot of margin. Like they're they come into our class, and we part of the class is that we pre-qualify them based on their income and credit. And if you're talking about a first-time household that can afford a $130,000 home, the options are pretty limited.

So we've really seen the market change. and I think what what's happened at Neighborworks is we've started to see when I started here, there was much less emphasis on the so on our real estate development side, the homes that we're building, that was that was a much smaller emphasis. We didn't we didn't build as many homes, we didn't need to because most people were accessing the traditional market and buying an existing home. Now what we're seeing is that we can we can build and sell a brand new home for under 200,000. And if you can compare that to what's on the existing market, it's really a night and day difference.  so we're seeing a lot more pressure on our new construction product to a point where we can't build fast enough to keep all the people in our program.

Lyn Wineman: 8:39

And then on top of that, workforce is an issue for building right now, right? Like I keep hearing from people that there are things that need to be built that are approved to be built, but there aren't enough talented tradespeople available to build them all.

Charlie Wesche : 8:58

Yep, and I I agree. And I I I'm involved a little bit on the statewide level when it comes to to workforce development and and contractors. I think in Lincoln we're pretty fortunate. We have a pretty good arsenal of contractors that we can that we can call on, but it's definitely it's definitely an issue. the workforce is definitely in the construction trades is definitely hurting.

Lyn Wineman: 9:27

Wow. All right. So, Charlie, I wanted to lay the foundation first and get a good feel for what Neighborworks does, but you've got a project that's pretty innovative that I'd like to talk about too, and that's called Prairie Roots Community Land Trust. I know it's a big innovation in Lincoln. You've told me across the country people are doing this, but tell me more.

Charlie Wesche : 9:50

Yeah, so Prairie Roots Community Land Trust, it was a response.  so internally, back in I believe 2019, we started a conversation with costs on the construction side, land costs going up, we were spending more and more money on building a single unit of housing. And the the question really became how do we how do we make the case, how do we justify that if we're gonna build, if we're gonna spend $400,000 to build, which is our total development costs on most projects, if we're gonna spend that amount of money to build a brand new home and then sell it affordably, how do we we need a mechanism or a tool that really can justify that that level of subsidy, like to the point where we're subsidizing a project $200,000. So that that led us into Neighborworks America, our nationwide we're an affiliate of Neighborworks America.  they had received a congressional allocation to to explore what's called shared equity homeownership. So it's the idea that you have some tool,  some mechanism that's safeguarding the affordability of any home that you build in the long term.

So a community land trust is one form of shared equity home ownership. we went through a several year process of of building out what eventually became called Prairie Roots Community Land Trust. But the the whole intention was to have the ability to build these homes that we're spending a lot of money on,  which we need to do because part of our mission is is building, I mean, in the historic core of Lincoln, providing housing opportunities and and building is definitely part of that. But we wanted a way to justify the expense. And in our old model, we were we were subsidizing the house down to an affordable price, but there was no legal legal mechanism that that safeguarded that affordability after the first sale. So the land trust gives us the ability by separating the land ownership from the homeownership, the trust retains ownership of the of the land. Our home buyers buy the home, but then when it comes time for them to sell, whenever they decide to, it could be three years, five years, seven years, whenever, we're able to sell that same home through a shared equity model to another household that's in the same financial situation. And I think just to to talk about some of the pushback that I've gotten, I think there's some misconceptions out there. number one is that shared equity home ownership, it doesn't create equity, that people don't make any money,  that they have a place to live, but they're not able to realize any any wealth gain on a shared equity home. And that's just categorically untrue. The idea is is that we we tie the resale value instead of it just being market-based, like where you can sell it for whatever the market will bear, we tie the resale price to the change in median income over time for the city of Tank. So if we if we sell a home at $200,000 to an under 80% median income household and say they live there for 10 years, in 10 years, we look at that span of ownership and we say, okay, so the median income at 80% went up by 14%. And I'm just making numbers up. 

Lyn Wineman: 13:43

But it's a good example. I'm following you.

Charlie Wesche : 13:46

But then we we assign that 14% increase to the original sale price and we sell the home at that adjusted resale value. The the original homeowner walks away with that equity and appreciation, but the home is still being sold to someone that's at under 80%.

Lyn Wineman: 14:05

So you're making a generational impact here, not just a one-time impact, but I mean, literally into forever, right?

Charlie Wesche : 14:15

Yeah, and I mean, that's the all of the all of the legal documents, the ground lease that governs this is all written. It's it's 99 years. We can't use the word lawyers tell me we can't use forever. Okay so we have to use 99 years. 

Lyn Wineman: 14:30

That sounds like a long time. That'll outlive probably both of us, Charlie. You you seem young and in good health, but probably the chances of either of us being here in 99 years pretty low. Exactly.

Charlie Wesche : 14:43

Yeah, and and it even every time there's a transfer, it resets. So it's another, it's 99 years from the previous sale. So essentially what we're able to do is we can use our subsidy sources,  grants that we receive to build new homes, but we're able to keep them permanently affordable so that they're serving that same income level, sale after sale after sale, instead of it being kind of a one and done type model.

Lyn Wineman: 15:16

I that sounds good. I like that term permanently affordable as well. And what I hear you say with that example is that the homeowner does build equity, they do build a level of wealth that will help them moving forward, but it's proportionate to their investment, not for the whole amount, which Neighborworks invested in significantly in addition to their investment. Is that a fair representation?

Charlie Wesche : 15:46

Yep, absolutely. And I think, I mean, when I when I talk about this, so to your point, when we started this talk this talking about this, nationwide land trust has been in operation for 70 years.  we're the first in Nebraska, but that doesn't mean it's been a very effective tool in other parts of the country.

So we've really had to educate our market and the state of Nebraska as to what's going on in other parts of the country where it's been really effective. And I think really at the end of the day, the the goal, and this is what I tell when I when I speak on this, I view it as a stepping stone approach. Yeah. Taking households that that are renting, where there's no ability to generate generational wealth. We're putting them into a shared equity model through the land trust where they can live in a home, it's their home, they can treat it like their own, they can have a garden, they can do all the things that home ownership brings. They are resale restricted, yeah. But they are walking away when they decide to make that next move, with in theory, is enough to create a down payment for that traditional purchase. Yeah. So it's a renter to shared equity to traditional market. That's kind of the trajectory that we're we're trying to set up.

Lyn Wineman: 17:07

That makes a lot of sense to me. That's a great model. And honestly, I hadn't heard of it until you and I first talked about this a few weeks ago, Charlie. So I think it's kind of cool to know that A, something innovative like this is happening in Lincoln, but yet it's got 70 years of trial outside of Nebraska that you're able to lean in on. So I wanted to talk about something else that you have going on. I mean, I first reached out to you because I saw a New York Times article that highlighted your approach to tying energy efficiency to housing affordability. And whenever you see an organization, a nonprofit from Lincoln, Nebraska, in the New York Times, you say, huh, something interesting must be going on here. Can you tell us a little bit about that program and how the article came about?

Charlie Wesche : 18:02

Yeah, I mean, it is it is pretty cool.  I try to downplay most things, but to have an article, to have your name in the New York Times is is something.

Lyn Wineman: 18:13

It's big. I mean, I will tell you, Charlie, a lot of organizations pay PR firms a lot of money for that kind of exposure. And so I love to see it when it just happens because of a really great program.

Charlie Wesche : 18:28

And and my mom certainly got a lot of, she shared it with a lot of people.

Lyn Wineman: 18:31

Um is the article still on her fridge? That is my question.

Charlie Wesche : 18:35

I I would, I'm fairly certain. I haven't been, I haven't been there, but I'm fairly certain. Yeah.  yeah, so the the South of Downtown Rental Rehab Program,  which is what the the New York Times article was about, is it's it's actually a program funded through the city of Lincoln, through the Urban Development Department. And a handful of years ago, four or five years ago,  Neighborworks worked with urban development to kind of put together the bones of this program,  the structure. And when we first, I mentioned in the article,  when we first started talking about rental rehab, there's some concerns that surface because you start thinking about, okay, we're giving grant money to landlords. What are they going to do once they've made the improvements? What does that mean for the existing tenants? Are they going to raise the rents? So, one of the things we really focused in on is how do we how do we structure this program so that there's there's some teeth. If a landlord receives this grant funding to make infrastructure upgrades, to make upgrades to a unit, what's keeping them from raising the rents? So part of the structure is that the the grant money is actually structured as a lien on the on the program or on the property, and they have to maintain compliance with HUD fair market rents. They can't increase rents beyond that that threshold, which is determined every year by HUD housing urban development for the city of Lincoln. When we had that in place, it really gave me a lot of peace of mind. because what we're what we found, particularly in the south of downtown, is that that's an area where there's a lot of what's called NOAA or naturally occurring affordable housing.  most landlords that we talked to were already renting at levels that were considered affordable. So it was really how do we how do we inject some money to make improvements that benefit the the lived experience of those tenants that allow property owners to make major investments and improvements in their buildings, all while assuring that rents aren't going to go up.

So that's really the that all of that came together to create the South of Downtown Rental Rehab program. And we administer that program. We were we helped on the front end to kind of structure it.  but it is a city or it's a program run through the city of Lincoln. and it's been really successful. We've we've been able to rehab about a hundred apartment units every year for the last three years.

Lyn Wineman: 21:23

That's a lot. How many people live in a typical apartment? I mean, that's a lot of people who are finding affordable places to live that are well taken care of.

Charlie Wesche : 21:33

Sure. And I I think what's interesting is that we we intentionally the first well, the first three years, we've we've tried to get a cross section of building types. So we've had everything from single family homes that are rental up to I think our biggest building was 53 units. So that 53 unit building, they're eligible for $15,000 per unit. So that's pretty sizable chunk of money.

And they they were able to use it. It was, it wasn't the flashy stuff. It wasn't quartz countertops and new cabinets. Although they did put in new cabinets. But it was it was things like upgrading infrastructure, the sewer system, the water service. Really, as I talked to landlords, the things that that they wanted to be able to improve, but didn't have the cash to do it. I mean that's a a major expense. And if you have properties that are that the rents aren't bringing in a whole lot of money, it's really hard to to have that cash set aside to make those big improvements. So it's it's been very successful. I think where the New York Times their their angle it was part of a series called 50 it was it was basically 50 environmental solutions in 50 states. And what we've been able to do is we've been able to to basically couple the South of downtown program with assistance through Lincoln Electric system. So every property that we were involved with, we do an inspection and we do a walkthrough and LES is right there beside us. And if they can if they can upgrade the efficiency, if they can get off of a boiler system and go to more of a modern mini split system, they're making that investment and that's in addition to the 1500 that the city is providing. So really I mean and you're going in and doing it at the same time so you're I'm assuming you're minimizing downtime which also costs these multi-unit owners money right yep absolutely so it's been I mean from a from just a a flat out rehab perspective being able to provide I mean upgraded lived experience but also the the environment the sustainability side with LES and then most of the time owners also contribute a certain amount. So it's not uncommon that we're doing that the the rental rehab program might be doing some of the more infrastructure based things. The owner is taking care of repainting reflooring and then LES might be doing upgraded windows upgraded heating and cooling and you really end up with on the back end an apartment a unit that is both renovated and much more energy efficient.

Which is I mean big picture that's great but also in terms of the pocketbook of the tenant I mean they're paying less in in utility costs. So it's there's a there's a lot of wins going on with that.

Lyn Wineman: 24:51

Absolutely. Charlie one of the things I'm thinking about here is I've heard you talk from the beginning of our conversation to now you know you're involved with government and policy I hear you're involved with new construction and rehab you're involved with community trust you're involved with energy efficiency. You're involved with just helping people generationally you know improve their their living situation and their financial standing when you think about like I'm picturing this wagon wheel with you right in the middle of it like what's the hardest part of balancing all of those different things oh I I think that's that's one of the joys of this job.

Charlie Wesche : 25:38

Ah okay I I think that's really where like if we're talking personally like that's where I thrive I I love being able to to have conversations that might seem a little separate at the time. Yeah but how do we take those things and we kind of fit them together I think I mean that's that's what really brings me a lot of joy is being able to to have conversations with the the stakeholders that we have across the city. And I mean Lincoln is Lincoln is pretty unique. Yes we all know it's the big small town right and we're all very proud of it.

Lyn Wineman: 26:18

Those of us that live here and I know we have a lot of listeners from outside of Lincoln but those of us that live here in Lincoln we're very proud of our community.

Charlie Wesche : 26:26

Absolutely and and we should be but I think that's where I mean I I I really enjoy being able to kind of have the big picture and there are sometimes I mean things I I think what I what I become guilty of is like wanting to expand when I put my Neighborworks Lincoln hat on something that might not necessarily be mission fit but still could be good for the city it's like how do we how do we work through that and kind of put it on the plate of people that that it makes more sense.

Lyn Wineman: 27:01

So that balance of service and mission focus right is always there's always some tension there.

Charlie Wesche : 27:08

Yeah yeah absolutely but it's that's really I mean I think it's challenging because we are I mean a lot of the work that we do all of the work that we do is based on community trust. Yeah so it's not just it's not just talking to policymakers or government officials. It's it's also having conversations with community members and and understanding what the the implications are and and seeing it from their from their perspective. I think one of the things I'm most proud of is since I took over this role or took on this role our real estate development has been very community focused to the point we have a an 18 unit project on three acres that we we really wanted to engage and not just not just hear from the neighbors but actually include them in the in the process.

Lyn Wineman: 28:04

Wow that's pretty cool because sometimes neighbors I mean myself included every once in a while you're like I I don't know about this new project that's coming in here. Yeah.

Charlie Wesche : 28:14

And I think I mean we we put together a resident advisory board we had lots of we kind of had to to get through the the pie in the sky like this project isn't going to be all things to everyone. Right. But it's like once you can get down to like what really matters and get get the opinions of the community that where Neighborworks Lincoln was at what's actually achievable then you're really I mean I think you're you're onto something pretty special and I I feel good about that process.

Lyn Wineman: 28:48

I love that Charlie I'm really interested and that it's a great lead into my next question. I'm always really interested in how leaders find the positions that you're in because it feels like I don't know if this found position found you or you found it but it feels like you are the right leader for the time of Neighborworks Lincoln and what's your journey been like to get into this role oh Lynn that's a great question.

Charlie Wesche : 29:16

Um so a little bit unexpected. So I actually started in college I was a biology major I started my professional career out of college as a seventh and eighth grade science teacher at Pound Middle School. All right wow bless you for being a middle school teacher I I think I think that's kind of that experience has kind of helped shape some of my perspective you can deal with anyone at this point. Yeah and I but I think so that experience I I taught for about 10 years and had worked construction through high school a little bit in college and with my summers off teaching I I started basically just reaching out to to friends family people I knew and it's like hey do you have odd jobs that I could do and that eventually what started as just kind of summer work something to to get back to to get to meet people and know people serve people that turned into a full time gig so I I operated what was called homeworks was my remodeling company we did a lot of kitchen bath basement finishing and I I got I did that for several years and was just kind of starting to kind of get self-employment figured out and a friend of mine sent me a job description for the rehab manager role in Neighborworks Lincoln and part of that was teaching our home buyer education class. So it was kind of this blending of the construction background with the education side and I remember thinking I I read through the description and I said okay yeah I'll look into this so I called to our office and hey are you still hiring and sure enough they were so we had a conversation and a couple weeks later I was offered the the rehab manager role and since then it's just been I I think I think what I've found is that the the nonprofit world is really I mean where my heart's always been yeah I think people are just wired one way or another and I think it's just been a pretty natural fit. But it's been working up from rehab manager to director of real estate development to chief of staff and then assuming the the CEO role from there.

Lyn Wineman: 31:41

So you really even your journey through Neighborworks you had a lot of different experiences as before you got to this role which really had to lay a nice foundation.

Charlie Wesche : 31:52

Yeah and I think I mean if I'm being honest one of the things that that I that I really miss I I spend a lot of time talking to people but it's it's not necessarily the homeowners that we're working with on a day-to-day basis and that's one thing that I really miss is when I was rehab manager I was working day in and day out helping people through the home buying process and I was kind of the person they called when they had a question or they needed to be I don't know calmed down a little bit. Yeah yeah and I it's one of the things I really miss is being able to have that that interaction so I I try to stay rooted in that and and take advantage of those opportunities when I have them but it's it's definitely been something that I've it's been different.

Lyn Wineman: 32:40

Yep. Charlie this is an audio podcast so most of our listeners who are probably driving or gardening or doing housework or all the things people do while listening to podcasts, they don't get to see you, but I get to see you while we're doing this interview. And what I want to tell people is every time you talk about homeowners, I see your face light up a little bit and I'm I'm curious do you have any stories to share? I mean obviously we don't want you to give any personal details but any stories to share that might be a good example of this work coming together.

Charlie Wesche : 33:14

Yeah there I I have one and it's kind of my my go-to and I I usually wrap it in that a lot of times in in this work we make assumptions of what people know. Yeah and assumptions can as we all know can be really dangerous. Right. But there was one household that I was working with and they were an immigrant family that had been here for the I think the last at the time they had been here about five years and they were in the process of buying their their first house and I was doing I was the rehab manager at the time and was walking through the house with them pointing out all the all the items that we are going to re repair or replace once they bought the house to help them out. And very typical it's it was our very similar process to every other transaction. But we ended up outside and the I had been talking to the son who was translating to his dad to his father and the son asked me like basically pointing at the front and the backyard he was asking me like who owns the green space like there's the house in the middle the front and the backyard and it really caught me off guard and I said so like I I just want to make sure like you're asked he was asking about the front and backyard. Yeah yeah well that's your that's that's yours like you you're buying this entire property. Yeah and like I I just so I I remember like tears immediately from the father's eyes and like just this like here he thought he was only buying the house and someone else was going to own the yard but to have a place for his kids to play I mean that was really that was really special and that that that moment really taught me in this work we have to be really careful of the assumptions we make and that everyone I say it almost daily you know you only know what you know you don't know what you don't know.

Lyn Wineman: 35:14

And why would you know that right like if you have come from a culture or a different place where you know that's not the custom why would you know that that's amazing Charlie a lot of our listeners want to make a difference. I mean we're the Agency for Change podcast and I'm curious because you are a change maker, a difference maker what advice would you have for somebody who's looking to make meaningful change in the world.

Charlie Wesche : 35:29

I would say I I I think I I always say it's you need to show up show up I think I think in this day and age there's so much I mean for lack of a better term there's the keyboard worrying war warring. Yeah and I think whether it's volunteering for a board I mean volunteering at a at a at an organization signing up for a committee with the city showing up at a neighborhood association meeting I think any of those things it's true that decisions are made by people that are in the room and I think the most important thing I mean whatever whatever your whatever your voice is whatever your opinion is it's important to show up and I think what we're seeing is people are kind of replacing social media with that actual experience and it's it's not a one for one like yeah it is important to show up and and to be present and whatever that means it could be something small it could be something big but I think showing up is definitely the first step.

Lyn Wineman: 36:52

Real connection is meaningful for sure so Charlie for people who might want to show up on behalf of Neighborworks whether that's volunteering donation just finding out more about the programs how can they find information about you?

Charlie Wesche : 37:11

Yeah of course so number one we have our our website https://nwlincoln.org/  has all of our program information staff information project information it's kind of the the clearing house for everything our land trust prairie roots also has a website https://prairierootsclt.org/. Then both of those entities are also on Facebook and Instagram. I think Facebook and Instagram give us kind of more authentic kind of day-to-day type types of things so it's a little bit different but but any of those avenues are ways that people can sound more information.

Lyn Wineman: 37:51

We'll have all of those links in the show notes for this episode as well so if you didn't get those written down you can jump on those later all right Charlie I'm asking you my favorite question next as we kind of wind down on this podcast. Our listeners know I am inspired by motivational quotes and I would love a Charlie Wesche original quote to inspire our listeners.

Charlie Wesche : 38:17

Okay I've been thinking about this and my staff if they listen to this they're gonna laugh but mine is embrace chaos. Oh I think so often we want we want things that are neat and tidy and predictable and I I think when you look at major change has happened at at its at its origin there's always been a sense of chaos. Yeah and I don't mean chaos like completely chaotic right right and I'm as guilty of this as anyone I I'm type A personality I want the policy and the procedure and everything to go like hunky dory. Yeah but I also think and I I I mean I think some of this goes back to maybe my middle school teaching roots where it is a little bit of chaos. Yeah but I think I mean if you're if you're looking at making substantial change and I I think I'm really proud of the the land trust that we've started there we are we are getting to a point where it feels less chaotic. It's it still is a little bit like there's still a lot of questions it's it's very new but we have we have our our partners that are on the same page it wasn't always that way and it felt very I mean chaotic yeah and I think if we had given up because of that we would have not seen the the fruits of what we've been able to do. So I think even if it's just a little bit like being okay with a with a little bit of things being out of order or a little bit of chaos I think it pushes you in a really good direction.

Lyn Wineman: 40:07

You know Charlie it occurs to me with all of the innovation that's going on at Neighborworks Lincoln it occurs to me that you could have just stayed comfortable you could have just stayed comfortable and done what the organization has always done for the first you know 30 I think you said you were 40 years in existence now. You could have just done what you've always done. But going out and doing the land trust and the multi-unit changes and working with LES and and all of these different things I mean there is some chaos involved in that but I think what I see and hear from leaders like you is that when you've got this vision, you know the you know the reward is often on the other side of chaos. Every once in a while it's not but often often it is so I I love that about you. All right we're winding down to the last question here and and I'd like to end this Charlie with what is the most important thing you would like people to remember about the work that you're doing?

Charlie Wesche : 41:13

Oh man I think I think when it comes to I mean we're a housing organization housing is forefront of our minds along with community development I think what we need to keep in mind I mean there are one of the things I a note I wrote down is wanting to to talk about the the disparities that we see in society between black and white homeownership between racial racial equity the gap that we see there those are those are items that are forefront on my mind is how do we how do we take on those larger challenges but I think there's a tendency we're we're at a point the housing crisis is not going to be there's no silver bullet there's no one solution so it really is kind of this mass of solutions and it can be big they can be small we've had some wins at the federal level with some reforms that would be very helpful those would be big wins but we also have little wins like maybe starting a home buyer savings account through the legislature this year to help people save for a down payment for their first home. So I think it's that whole spectrum it's all of the things it's all of the solutions and I I think absent that we're just gonna continue to to spin our wheels and see home values continue to increase leaving behind the low to moderate income bands of of our of our communities and I I'm just not okay with that. So that's that drives all of the work that we do at Neighborworks and and through our subsidiaries as well.

Lyn Wineman: 43:06

Charlie I appreciate that I think that's a great way to end I want to say I fully believe the world needs more people like you and more organizations like Neighborworks Lincoln. Thank you so much for taking time out to talk with us today.

Announcer: 29:05

We hope you enjoyed today's Agency for Change podcast. To hear all our interviews with those who are making a positive change in our communities, or to nominate a change maker you'd love to hear from, visit kidglov.com at kidglov.com to get in touch. As always, if you like what you've heard today, feature to rate, review, subscribe, and share. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.