What does it mean to be an Antiracist Real Estate Brokerage?
After 25+ years in the real estate industry, we know that the traditional real estate brokerage approach doesn’t incorporate a justice model. As we started to see how racism was embedded in the real estate industry as a whole, we weren’t sure where to start. In the past year, we’ve finally come to a place where we see a path forward as we work to create a real estate brokerage with a justice model. The solutions aren’t necessarily clear, but a different approach has become crystal clear and it starts with cultivating a team of real estate professionals dedicated to anti-racism work.
What makes the work we do at Alvarado Real Estate Group different? In acknowledging that racism exists in our country and in the real estate industry we step out of denial and silence. We are committed to exploring and challenging the way racism is embedded within the real estate industry as a whole. We practice this work in a way that is rooted in justice, transparency, and accountability to those most marginalized.
Everyone in the company has committed to this work of exploring and challenging racism within their roles and capacity.
We have prioritized regular social justice sessions for open dialogue, difficult conversations, and deep learning.
We stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. This means different things to different people. At the core, we all believe Black Lives Matter and that the system was not created for and is not working for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and People of Color in the same way as it is for white people and that creates injustices that we have committed to explore and challenge. Systemic racism is real. Institutionalized racism is real. We choose to acknowledge that openly. We bring humility to this work.
We partner with community organizations to strengthen communities of color and support leadership.
We challenge our biases and learn to reframe them. We acknowledge societal conditioning and the messages we receive that uphold systems of oppression and we challenge them. We challenge the status quo, individually and as a company.
We commit to learning the historical context of racism in our industry and the interconnectedness in other areas so we can better challenge it in our day to day interactions in our work and beyond. We can’t change what we can’t see.
We are actively working towards our goal of creating a redistribution of wealth program by the end of 2020.
It takes a deep desire for change and it also takes time, energy, financial resources, and a strong sense of hope. Hope matters.
It is easy to see the need for change when we look at the homeownership disparities between white people and People of Color, at the lack of Black and Brown professionals in the real estate industry, and the generational weath gap. We know we can do better. Now is the time and commitment is the first step.
For more resources specifically around racial justice and real estate, click here.
