2025 Fair Housing Conference

Description

Fair housing is a foundation of strong, thriving communities and is a tool that housing providers and REALTORS® can use to connect people with housing.

Join us for the 2025 Fair Housing Conference on April 16 at the Tacoma Downtown Marriott, where professionals, stakeholders, and community members will come together to:

• Learn the basics of Fair Housing and how those rules affect your business and clients.
• Understand the newest resources available to get people into homeownership.
• Learn how equitable housing practices can be used as a tool for creating housing and homeownership opportunities for all members of the community.
• Engage with moderator-facilitated expert panel discussions.
• Collaborate with key resources available to grow homeownership opportunities for all.

Speakers confirmed for this year's conference include:

• Bill Dedman, Investigative Journalist and "Long Island Divided" co-author
• Alexia Smokler, NAR Director of Fair Housing Policy & Programs
• Jeannie Simpson, NWMLS General Counsel
• Panel Discussions featuring:
  • Attorneys
  • Homeownership advocacy organizations
  • Washington State Housing Finance Commission, Habitat for Humanity & Homesight
  • More to be announced!

Up-to 6 clock-hours available - including the DOL required Fair Housing course - for attendees with tracks focused on real estate agent and property management professionals.

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

Bill Dedman

TPCAR is excited to host national speaker, Pulitzer and Peabody award-winning investigative reporter, Bill Dedman! He has spoken on fair housing and fair lending issues to NAR, the Federal Reserve, HUD and banking and real estate associations.

Bill was one of four lead reporters on Newsday's undercover investigation of racial steering by real estate agents, Long Island Divided. The investigation, published in November 2019, revealed that Long Island's dominant residential real estate brokerages help reinforce racial segregation through illegal steering of customers. Newsday's team received several national awards for their work, including a Peabody Award. Long Island Divided and it's 40-minute documentary film, Testing the Divide:  http://newsday.com/divided.

Bill will be discussing how the tests of real estate agents were conducted, the major findings, and what agents can do to ensure fair treatment of consumers.

Alexia Smokler - National Association of REALTORS®

Alexia Smokler represents NAR’s positions on fair housing to Congress and federal agencies and leads NAR’s ACT! initiative, which emphasizes Accountability, Culture Change, and Training to advance fair housing in the industry. She led the development of Fairhaven: A Fair Housing Simulation, and Bias Override: Overcoming Barriers to Fair Housing. Alexia also oversees NAR’s discrimination self-testing program for real estate brokerages, NAR’s fair housing real estate licensure reform efforts, and other projects aimed at closing racial and ethnic homeownership gaps. Alexia serves as staff executive to NAR’s Fair Housing Policy Committee and writes and speaks regularly on fair housing issues to audiences around the country. Her 2021 cover story for REALTOR® Magazine, Repairers of the Breach, won several awards for excellence in business-to-business journalism.

Jeannie Simpson - Northwest Multiple Listings Service

Jeannie Simpson is the General Counsel for NWMLS. She is responsible for the company’s legal functions, advises the board of directors and senior management, manages the Washington statewide forms, oversees NWMLS’s rules and policies, administers member dispute resolution (arbitration/discipline), and directs data use and licensing. 

Prior to joining NWMLS in September 2021, Jeannie served as general counsel for Windermere Services Company from 2018-2021 and as general counsel for John L. Scott Real Estate from 2012-2018. 

Prior to that, Jeannie practiced law at Foster Pepper PLLC in Seattle, WA and Morrison & Foerster LLP in Tokyo, Japan and Palo Alto, CA where she represented a variety of clients in commercial real estate and affordable housing transactions and other matters. She received a Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from Transylvania University.

Organizations confirmed to be in-attendance include:

• The Alliance
• Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA)
• Black Home Initiative (BHI)
• Habitat for Humanity
• HomeSight
• National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP)
• Tacoma Urban League
• Washington State Housing Finance Commission
• Western Washington Realtist (WWR)