Lyn Burton Ep. 16 - Are you educating yourself to become a better citizen while helping others find their paths? Lyn Burton has spent most of her career life helping families in low and moderate incomes with their housing needs and is now helping others struggling with drugs to find themselves. Lyn takes her leap of faith to become a Unitarian Universalist Chaplain working with women who have struggled with drugs and need help defining that pathway "back to finding themselves." Lyn's greatest desire is to give back and mentor others including volunteering in prisons.
Top Takeaways:
-
- Helping people to find their paths back to becoming their best self
- Learning to exercise humility by understanding all the privilege that you enjoy in this country that others like you don't
- The issues in the social security sector that will need to be fixed by the coming generations
- The power of good education in enabling young people to become better citizens
- How to practice faith by learning to lean on others today without the guarantee of tomorrow
Learn the importance of forming lifetime relationships with people who don't necessarily look like you.
"I'm a talent scout," she said. "When I see talent in young people, it's like a magnet. And I want to know them, I want to hear what their dreams and aspirations are about. I want to help them get what they want out of their life." - Lyn Burton
Lyn Burton is President and Executive Director of Affordable Housing Connections in the Greater Minneapolis-St Paul area. The firm focuses on affordable housing compliance with Federal and State requirements. She was Senior VP/Director of Meritor Mortgage Corporation and worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development for many years. She and Nan established Women in Housing in Minnesota.
Lyn Burton partnered with Hamline University in St. Paul to offer a pioneering Leadership in Affordable Housing Certificate graduate course. The Certificate program examines the roots of the nation's affordable housing crisis and seek to prepare the next generation of diverse community leaders to address this ongoing problem in two courses. The target market is students from communities that are not now represented in leadership in the affordable housing industry.
Listen in to learn the importance of understanding your privilege in this country and exercising humility.
Key Moments:
Lyn describes her passion in what she does each day plus her religious work in addition to her work in nonprofit in housing [1:28]
She talks about the types of people she comes across in her line of work that needs help [5:55]
She describes her career in affordable housing on the Federal government side of things in Minnesota, her work in private-sector lending, and later starting a nonprofit in affordable housing [10:35]
Lyn describes how she met her late husband and the work he did in the affordable housing sector [16:58]
How teachers mentoring and an opportunity from the University of North Dakota shaped the future she ended up having [20:45]
Lyn recalls the many changes that have happened over the years in the political scene, the entertainment industry, the affordable housing sector, and mostly what affects people directly [26:16]
Lyn advises young people to get education cheaply, fast, early, to read as much as they can, and to create love and lifetime connections with people that don't necessarily look like them [36:01]
The challenges of being a lifelong caretaker to loved ones that Lyn took on as a young woman and how she learned to lean on others [39:14]
Relevant Links:
Affordable Housing Connections Website
Community TrailBlazers Article
Podcasts Like This: