In honor of Fair Housing month, NAR focused on new and existing programs – everything from podcasts, reports and research to its Fairhaven testing simulation.

WASHINGTON – The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) kicked off Fair Housing Month with a calendar of events, new resources and policy initiatives designed to empower its 1.5 million Realtors® to expand homeownership and support diverse, inclusive communities.

“We are taking on a bold goal to narrow racial and ethnic homeownership gaps substantially,” says Bryan Greene, NAR’s vice president of policy advocacy. “The Black-white homeownership gap is larger today than when the Fair Housing Act was signed into law more than 50 years ago. NAR is going beyond observances and building an action plan with industry partners to really move the needle on homeownership for groups that have been historically excluded.”

Before joining NAR in 2019, Greene was the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s top career official overseeing enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. He also designed NAR’s Accountability, Culture Change, and Training (ACT) fair housing initiative.

“We’re seeing unprecedented efforts by industry, nonprofit, government and private sectors to confront barriers to homeownership,” Greene says. “The wind is at our back, and we want to leverage every tool possible.”

NAR’s April “Fair Housing Month” plans

  1. The release of a new policy paper on April 12 detailing obstacles to home buying broken down by race and ethnicity. It comes on the heels of an NAR and realtor.com joint report in February titled “Double Trouble,” which found that record-high home prices coupled with record-low inventory hold many Americans back – particularly Black Americans.
  2. NAR is on the steering committee of the Black Homeownership Collaborative and helped develop a seven-point plan to add 3 million net new Black homeowners by 2030. Dubbed 3by30, many industry partners support the initiative.
  3. NAR says it’s also rolling out a 50-plus page fair housing toolkit to help state and local associations use fair housing grants to further fair housing in their communities.
  4. Realtors Tim Hurr, Stephen Beard and Lorraine Arora join Realtor Magazine’s new podcast, Drive with NAR, to discuss NAR’s Fairhaven fair housing simulation, the ACT plan, accessibility and appraisal bias. Listen to the episode: “Fair Housing: Who’s Being Left Out of the Conversation?“
  5. On April 22, Greene and Alexia Smokler, NAR’s director of fair housing policy, will speak at NAR’s Conference Year-Round session, “Fair Housing in your Neighborhood – How to Be an Agent of Change.”
  6. NAR will host a Facebook Live event on April 27 called “How Do We Close the Homeownership Gap?” In addition to panel discussions and research presentations, the event will celebrate NAR’s inaugural Fair Housing Champions.

“NAR’s Chief Advocacy Officer Shannon McGahn set an advocacy goal of Fair Housing for All, and with everything NAR has planned, I think we are moving in the right direction to achieve it,” Greene says.

For resources, book and media recommendations, and other information, visit NAR’s Fair Housing Month calendar of events.

Source: Realtor Magazine

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Author: kerrys