{"id":21075,"date":"2025-02-03T15:05:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T15:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/?p=21075"},"modified":"2025-02-03T15:11:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T15:11:55","slug":"santa-fe-realtors-promote-diverse-housing-options-in-housing-strapped-region-2-3-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-3-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-4-2-4-2-2-3-2-4-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-3-3-2-2-3-2-2-2-3-2-3-2-2-2-2-3-3-2-2-2-3-2-2-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/homepage\/success-story\/racr-fh0225","title":{"rendered":"REALTOR\u00ae Association of Central Massachusetts Hosts Fair Housing Trivia Night to Reach More Members and Colleagues with Essential Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last spring, the REALTOR\u00ae<\/sup> Association of Central Massachusetts (RACM) was looking for a way to engage more members in fair housing education.\u00a0 It also wanted to increase interaction with members of the local chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP.)\u00a0 By hosting a Fair Housing Trivia Night for both organizations at a lively local brewery, it hit on a winning solution where all the participants could meet, eat, drink, and test their knowledge of a subject that is anything but trivial.<\/p>\n

Government Affairs Director Konstantina Choros explains that the idea developed from a brainstorming session she had with a colleague who teaches some of the association\u2019s CE classes.\u00a0 \u201cWe were specifically thinking of how we could make good use of the REALTOR\u00ae<\/sup> Party\u2019s Fair Housing grant<\/a> program.\u00a0 Rent out a theater to screen the Long Island Divided<\/em> documentary?\u00a0 Bring in an expert speaker from NAR?\u201d \u00a0A trivia night event appealed to RACM\u2019s CEO, and her instinct was right, says Choros: \u201cTaking the event out of a classroom setting attracted members who had never been to one of our education programs, and its interactive nature meant that our members and our guests from NAHREP had the opportunity to engage in discussions about their experiences and understanding of the fair housing issues presented by each question, as well as plenty of time to mingle before and after the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cArranging the event was really very easy,\u201d she adds.\u00a0 \u201cAll you need is a space.\u00a0 We were lucky to have a brewery in town that offered us its cool upstairs room at no charge with a minimum food order.\u00a0 So, it was automatically a fun, free weeknight event for all involved.\u00a0 We requested advance registration for planning purposes, but still welcomed walk-ins.\u00a0 As people arrived, they were given a drink token and assigned a team number.\u00a0 By creating random teams and breaking up office groups that arrived together, we promoted new acquaintances and helped to smooth the way for those who arrived alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

They promoted the event through email, social media and individual committee communication channels.\u00a0 Thanks to a close existing relationship with NAHREP, it was just a matter of reaching out to their leadership and following up with the event flyer.<\/p>\n

The hardest part was coming up with the program\u2019s twenty questions, notes Choros \u2013 plus a tie-breaker, just in case.\u00a0 She consulted NAR\u2019s Fairhaven program, and its other online resources, as well as her own books from when she was preparing for licensure as a REALTOR\u00ae<\/sup> in Massachusetts.\u00a0 The event\u2019s emcee, a member with disc-jockey experience, read each question and gave the six teams about a minute to deliberate over their answers, which they penciled on a provided sheet.\u00a0 As they wrestled with prompts from \u2018What are the protected demographic classes at the federal level?\u2019 to \u2018What are the fourteen protected classes in Massachusetts?\u2019 to \u2018Can you say \u2018_____\u2019 in a listing?\u2019 things got pretty lively, says Choros.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the correct answers were, in fact, shocking, such as the fact that in Massachusetts, recipients of public assistance, a protected class, are discriminated against 86% of the time when seeking housing.\u00a0 Participants were up in arms, telling me I got it wrong; I had to say, \u2018Guys, I\u2019m taking this straight from the Commonwealth\u2019s data!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fair Housing Grant covered the food and beverages. Funds from the NAR grants programs may not be used for prizes, so RACM paid for the $10 Starbucks gift cards awarded to each member of the winning team.\u00a0 The real win, though, was an increased understanding of fair housing law at the state and national level among real estate professionals in central Massachusetts: even the winning team missed one question, reports Choros, which means that everyone playing learned something about fair housing. \u00a0On the strength of the program\u2019s success, she says, RACM is considering future fair housing events with an emphasis on fun:\u00a0 a Jeopardy game, perhaps?<\/p>\n

To learn more about how the REALTOR\u00ae<\/sup> Association of Central Massachusetts is finding engaging ways to educate members and industry colleagues about Fair Housing law, contact Government Affairs Director Konstantina Choros at konstantina@isosrealty.com<\/a> or 508.439.9184.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seeking a way to make fair housing education less a classroom experience and more a fun collegial event, the REALTOR\u00ae Association of Central Massachusetts hosted a Fair Housing trivia night at a nearby brewery for members and colleagues from the local NAHREP chapter. The content prompted much discussion and engagement, and by the time the scores were tallied at the end of the evening, even the winning team had learned a thing or two about fair housing.","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,33,296],"tags":[432,14,500],"class_list":["post-21075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-us","category-success-stories","category-success-story","tag-fair-housing","tag-grants","tag-massachusetts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21126,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21075\/revisions\/21126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtorparty.realtor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}