U.S. Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI), co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, will deliver the keynote address at the National Association of Gay and Lesbian Real Estate Professionals’ (NAGLREP) first LGBT Housing Policy Summit in March, the organization recently announced. Former Obama Administration LGBT Liaison Gautam Raghavan, vice president of Policy at the Gill Foundation, will also speak at the event, which will bring together LGBT and allied housing leaders, including from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the National Association of REALTORS®, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the LGBTQ Task Force.
“The Housing Policy Summit is an important step to ensure that federal Fair Housing laws include LGBT protections and HUD continues to recognize the importance of LGBT concerns,” says NAGLREP Policy Committee Chair John Graff, who heads the John Graff Group in Los Angeles. “The LGBT community has made great strides in recent years. The word ‘home’ means so much to Americans, and we must make sure that the LGBT community’s path to homeownership, community inclusion, rental opportunities and access to lending is never hindered.”
Congressman Cicilline—one of the six openly gay members of the U.S. House of Representatives and in his fourth term representing Rhode Island—followed the Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark marriage equality decision by introducing the Equality Act with a goal of adding comprehensive anti-discrimination protections to the LGBT community in public accommodations, housing, employment, federal funding, education, credit and jury service.
The Summit will take place on March 14, 2017, at the HRC headquarters in Washington, D.C. The all-day event will conclude with a Capitol Hill visit to meet with the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus.
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is the title sponsor of the Summit, with additional support from Union Bank and Long & Foster Real Estate.Â
For more information, please visit www.naglrep.com.
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