Housing Advocate to the Stars, Len Langford!

Editor’s note: We don’t often take the time to acknowledge people on the frontlines of Solid Ground’s efforts to help people thrive. Last week one of our best and brightest retired, Housing Advocate Len Langford. If you care about ending poverty, helping people access affordable housing, and fighting the good fight, you should read what one of his colleagues and dear friends, Karen Ford, had to say about Len. God bless you, Len. Wherever you go next, we know you will shine!

It was my great honor to sit on Len Langford’s interview committee over 14 years ago. Immediately his intelligence and humor shone through and we were all
enchanted. Len was more than qualified for the housing advocate position with his extensive and worldly experience but he also possessed something more intangible – a rare charm that we sensed both clients and landlords would relate to – and they did.

Len was JourneyHome’s first in-house housing advocate, and through the years he steadily and skillfully housed hundreds of homeless families, many with significant barriers to housing that he would somehow convince even the most wary landlord to take a chance on. So now Len is in theory…retiring… at least from Solid Ground! But he has done this retiring thing before (retired Navy Vietnam veteran ((2 tours of duty)), retired Coast Guard officer, retired long-term care facility director/administrator, retired Seattle Housing Authority manager), so given what Len has already done, I’m looking forward to seeing what amazing thing he will decide to do in the next chapter of his life. Whatever it is, he will do it with the same compassion, wisdom, humor and care that he has so graciously shared with all the clients, landlords and colleagues he has worked with.

Len’s JourneyHome email signature says “Housing Advocate to the Stars,” and he always will say humbly that he “is here to serve” (and he does!), but in truth, it is Len who is a brilliant, unique and shining star. Thank you Len for all you are – I, and so many others, love you dearly!