Story by Ulises Silva. Photos by Rodrigo Carrillo.
On a national stage that featured First Lady Michelle Obama as a keynote speaker, TRP’s Financial Education and Counseling department shared its new home purchase model, TRP Realty, with hundreds of national nonprofits.
The NCLR Annual Conference, which was held in New Orleans from July 19 through July 23, represents the largest and most important gathering of the nation’s most influential individuals, organizations, institutions, and companies working with the Hispanic community.
TRP’s Financial Education and Counseling team took a 15-hour road trip to New Orleans to share their presentation, The Mission before Commission: Models for Building Latino Wealth through Homeownership.
“Our presentation focused on how to help Latino families build wealth through home ownership,” explains Rodrigo Carrillo, TRP Financial Services Manager. “For many families, it seems like an unattainable dream. But we’ve recently enhanced our home purchase program by adding a professional real estate function. Now we’re working closely with families who just a few weeks ago thought they could never own a home.”
By combining professional home brokerage services with TRP’s existing homebuyer counseling and education services—including free workshops on improving credit and budgeting—TRP Realty is helping families prepare financially to purchase a home and learn what it takes to keep a home. Once the family is ready, our specialists and licensed Realtors® help them secure financing through partner lenders before helping them look for a quality home that fits their budget. And because TRP’s Realtors® work on a salary, they are able to focus on the mission of getting working families into good homes.
“Our program,” says Carrillo, “ensures that buyers’ interests are represented, and that the message of affordable, sustainable homeownership is delivered from beginning to end. It’s a very customer-centric home-purchase process.”
Helping families become successful homeowners is part of TRP’s comprehensive approach to creating healthy communities by encouraging families to build wealth through home ownership and invest in and take care of their communities.
Carrillo hopes that TRP Realty is a program that will be replicated in other cities across the nation. But his team’s track record of helping families achieve financial stability earned national recognition at the conference when it was presented NCLR’s Outstanding Counseling Services in the Midwest Region award.
“We’re honored to be recognized by NCLR,” says Carrillo. “But we’re even more honored to know that the work we’re doing in Chicago might not just have a positive impact on our communities here, but in communities across the country.”
 

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