SAN DIEGO-Launching its first-ever San Diego program this fall, the University Southern California Ross Minority Program in Real Estate is expanding its efforts to increase diversity in commercial real estate farther south. San Diego is no exception to the many challenges real estate developers face when addressing the needs of underserved communities, says Stan Ross, chairman of the board of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. The expansion is looking to focus on providing development-related solutions to that region's unique set of challenges.

GlobeSt.com: Diversity in the workplace seems to have taken the forefront of news coverage recently, but the USC Ross Minority Program in Real Estate has been working towards this goal for almost 20 years. Why is diversity so essential in the real estate industry?

Stan Ross: The creation of the program itself was essentially a response to the desperate need for qualified, experienced real estate professionals who could relate to the inner-city needs after the Los Angeles riots in 1992. The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency sought to involve minority developers to revitalize the broken city, but they found it was lacking such professionals. The riots may have taken place more than 20 years ago but this problem still exists.The real estate industry has had very limited diversity while the minority groups have steadily increased in percentage of the population. The Ross Minority Program in Real Estate has found that this means cities are still in need of professionals who are familiar with the cultures in those areas who can provide first-hand knowledge in terms of preferences of designs, colors and even numbers. It's about people of the community, people who understand the community and people who came from the community having a real understanding of the needs and it's all based off of the real estate component. The program focuses on fulfilling this deficit. It's not just about workplace diversity; it's dealing with the whole development process.