CAR’s Farrah Wilder on the importance of advocating for an inclusive housing industry

Today’s Daily Download episode features an interview with Farrah Wilder, the newly appointed chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at the California Association of Realtors. In this episode, Wilder speaks with HousingWire about CAR’s reasons for creating the role and the importance of advocating for an inclusive housing industry.

During the interview, Wilder, who also served the Equal Rights Advocates as a civil rights attorney, explains why her background in law has made her perfectly suited for her new role at CAR.

“It was there [ERA] that I really got a sense of the nuances of intersectionality,” Wilder said. “Their focus is gender discrimination, but as it intersects with race and class. So, there was a lot of discussion around what does it mean to be a woman of color in the workplace or a woman from a working-class background?”

According to Wilder, this lesson helped her better understand the complexities of inequality within the housing industry, and what professionals will need to do to address housing discrimination.

“I think one of the biggest things that we’re going to need to do is build systems that allow us to have space to continuously focus on and learn about these issues,” Wilder said. “For example, the California Association of Realtors has committees, and members regularly meet to discuss policy and learn about persistent fair housing issues.”

“I see it as a mission, but it’s not something that we can’t address, and I think we have to start from the top down, you know, from CEOs to people who own brokerages,” Wilder said. “I think the message needs to be that our industry is focused on housing discrimination. This is an important issue and we’re working on it.”

The Daily Download examines the most compelling articles reported by the HousingWire newsroom team. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories coming across our newsroom that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Victoria Wickham.