Legal discrimination in housing
From: Jennifer Cartee (jennhorde.org)
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 14:44:02 -0700 (MST)

Sheila wrote:

But I continue to assert that selling houses to people on any basis
besides ability to afford the house is illegal (except, as somebody has
pointed out during this discussion, in the case of *legal*, and narrowly
defined, communities for older folks [<--thanks for the correction,
btw]). This practice of overtly or covertly denying people access to
housing is wrong and it is wrong for very good reasons.
I don't mean to derail the interesting dialogue of the last few days, but I feel the need to correct the statement above. This is the second or third time someone has asserted that it is illegal to discriminate in housing sales on any basis other than ability to pay. I am an attorney and my studies have focused on emplyment discrimination and, more generally, on individual rights and liberties. This assertion just isn't true, not anywhere in the United States. Housing is not a fundamental right in out country.

It *is* illegal to discriminate in housing on the basis of certain categories that are protected classifications under the United States constitution (race, country of origin, religious affiliation, ethnicity, and sex) or by US statute (age, except in certain limited situations already discussed and disability) or state constitutions or laws (some states also include marital status, veteran status, and a few even include sexual orientation (five the last time I checked) or gender identity (only California and Rhode Island, to my knowledge, and I am not sure it is state wide in California). Sometimes there are municipal codes that get in the act too, but that's it. It *is* legal to discriminate by refusing to sell to teachers, to Republicans, to vegetarians, to attorneys. Those are not protected classifications under the law and it does not violate anything to skip over a perfectly-able-to-pay Vegetarian Republican Professor of Law to sell to someone with less resources or just someone you or your organization likes more. Some developers get zoning variances with an understanding that they will sell to on a first come, first served basis or use a lottery system to allocate "affordable units." Mortgage lenders and realty agents who show listings are limited in some further ways too, based on a history of being horribly discriminatory, but those are industry regulations and so not affect the sale itself, as between the buyer and the seller.

I am not meaning to take a larger position on this issue. I think all communities are selective to some extent and cohousing communities probably more so, because of the anticipation of working closely at length with everyone involved. I don't think this is always wrong, but I do think that some communities certainly take it too far or use false or ill-informed or prejudicial notions of what people from various categories are like, if they would make good neighbors, etc. I think that ultimately hurts the communities they create, but I hardly think this idea is controversial (i.e. false data leads to poor use of resources/bad results). The only new point I am trying to convey is that such selectivity is not illegal outside of a very small number of categories and that this is true regardless of if there are federal or state subsidies involved in the project.

in community,

Jenn Cartee
Mosaic Commons (MA)


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