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improve outcomes for Black and Hispanic communities, the organization said.

The Appraiser Diversity Initiative, a program led by mortgagebuying companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and civil rights organization the National Urban League, is teaching new potential appraisers with a diversity of identities in an effort to close this gap.

Approaching inclusion in real estate from a wider perspective, a program through the Urban Land Institute Colorado works to train women and people of color in development. This program, called the Real Estate Diversity Initiative, aims to create urban landscapes that serve diverse communities.

“I think trust in communitybuilding is key,” Executive Director Rodney Milton said. “When developers build projects, they need community support because they’re shaping the community. And who better to be equipped to strengthen a community, to build it out, to revitalize it, then the folks who are from that community?”

Welcome to Fairhaven

Housing is a source of discrimination complaints. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission Annual report found that 14% of complaints were claims about housing issues.

Chantal Sundberg, a Black Real - vibrant, informed and whole Colorado.

The Sun, launched in 2018, is committed to fact-based, in-depth and non-partisan journalism. It covers everything from politics and culture to the outdoor industry and tor who works in the metro Denver area, said she has not witnessed or experienced discrimination in her work with her clients, most of whom are Black.

“Everyone is treated equal, whether it’s borrowing or buying homes,” she said.

Sundberg witnessed the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when hundreds of thousands of members of a minority ethnic group called the Tutsi were murdered by members of the Hutu ethnic majority. In her eyes, although it might be important to talk about topics of racial discrimination, focusing on them too much can have unintended consequences.

“When we emphasize them so much, it creates more division rather than unity,” she said.

Still, discrimination is an ongoing concern for the National Association of Realtors and Brokers.

Sundberg said Realtors are trained to address discrimination issues.

And to Gill, the Realtor who helped Johnson sell her home, the association’s training is not enough to help all real estate agents.

“Race is a part of it, but it’s not the in-depth, you know, ‘how to understand if you’re being a racist or not,’” he said.

To address such concerns, the association released an immersive online simulation in 2020 that aims to train agents to recognize and avoid acting on their own biases.

The program is part of the association’s Fair Housing Act Plan, which leaders created to empha -

FROM PAGE 15 the bat is pretty typical for these structures,” says Tony Cady, a planning and environmental manager for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

State agencies, working with non-profit groups and others, have crunched the data to delineate the state’s 5% highest priority road segments. These data may give Colorado a leg up on access to federal funds.

The two studies found 48 highpriority segments on the Western Slope and 90 east of the Continental Divide, including the Great Plains, reports Michelle Cowardin, education.

Now, The Colorado Sun co-owns this and other Colorado Community Media newspapers as a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy. The Sun is CCM’s partner for size accountability and culture change. The training is meant to make housing more accessible and affordable to people of color.

A White Colorado Community Media reporter went through the online simulation, which takes place in a fictional town called Fairhaven. The simulation puts a person in the shoes of potential homebuyers who are experiencing discrimination.

One scenario is based on a federal court case, Clinton-Brown v. Hardick. In 2020, Todd Brown and Ebony Clinton-Brown filed a suit against Helene L. and John Hardick alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act and Rhode Island law.

The case claims the Hardicks noticed Clinton-Brown’s first name and asked their real estate agent if Ebony was Black. When they learned she was, the Hardicks refused to sell their property and the agent withdrew the listing upon the Hardicks’ request, ceasing communication.

Throughout the simulation, agents attempt to theoretically sell four homes within six months while coming across day-to-day happenings including the views of colleagues and encounter issues like language barriers. The simulator provides for moments of reflection in the sales process. At the end of the training, agents are given feedback.

According to Alexia Smokler of the National Association of Realtors, the organization decided to pursue the simulator after a Newsday investigation revealed alleged a wildlife biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The Craig and Meeker areas have lots of high priority roads, but so is much of I-76 between Fort Morgan to Julesburg has many high-priority segments.

Some jurisdictions are diving deeper. Eagle County has completed a study of wildlife connectivity, and in the Aspen area, a non-profit called Safe Passages has secured funding to begin identifying highest-priority locations in the Roaring Fork and Crystal River valleys.

These new studies attest to a shift in public attitudes. Rob Ament of Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute says wildlife connectivity is becoming institutionalized statewide news. housing discrimination on Long Island, New York.

For Colorado Sun stories, opinions and more, and to support The Sun’s misssion as a member or subscriber, visit coloradosun. com.

“We wanted to show how discrimination plays out in real life scenarios and so we drew on real fair housing cases and frequently asked questions from our members to create these simulated scenarios so they could see how discrimination looks,” Smokler said.

Scenarios in the simulation are based on true stories. They include testimonials to show discrimination from the perspective of race, disability and LGBTQ+ identities.

“We’ve had people tell us watching these videos — they’re very emotional videos — that they are in tears, that they’re angry, that they’re going to stand up for their clients and also we’ve had folks say ‘I wasn’t aware of these sorts of things are going on’ and ‘this has really opened my eyes,’” Smokler said.

Brian Arnold, who used to work with clients at Aurora Warms the Night, said training like Fairhaven could help combat discrimination. But he noted that since the Fairhaven simulation is not a mandatory step in real estate agent licensing, it is challenging to ensure people who need the training actually do it.

“For your … real estate agents that are doing well, that are maybe using discriminatory practices, how are you going to get those people to use it?” Arnold said. “Unless it’s a mandatory (program) ... then it’s just a nice program that’s out there that could help.” in how we think about transportation corridors. Instead of an extravagance, he says, crossings are becoming a cost of doing business.

This is happening internationally, too. “My world is just exploding,” he said while reciting crossings for elephants in Bangladesh, tigers in Thailand and work for other species in Argentina, Nepal, and Mongolia.

If in some ways a long time in coming, we are redefining the relationship between highways and wildlife.

Check out other work by Allen Best about climate change, the energy transition and other topics at BigPivots.com.