Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Fair Housing and Cohousing in Oregon

[Sophie Rubin (yophiest]

Why can you prefer  "households with children under 18" if that is a
protected class?

My understanding was that you could not.

I have seen age preferences tho - eg we will give preferential treatment to
younger households. Age itself is not protected.

What you need to do is put in place a fair and transparent process for how
you select members, and then follow that process (hopefully with
documentation). You need to design the process to fit the needs of your
community without specifically calling out a protected class.

And consult an attorney.


On Fri, Mar 7, 2025 at 12:58 Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <
cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> > On Mar 7, 2025, at 3:27 PM, Lisa Kuntz via Cohousing-L <
> cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> >
> > What constitutes preferential treatment and how is that different from
> > being discriminatory?
>
> The most important point is that you cannot discriminate against the
> protected classes — the ones specified by the law: race, color, religion,
> national origin, sex, disability, and familial status (presence of kids
> under 18 in a household).
>
> You can prefer "households with children under 18" but you can’t prefer
> "households with children under 18, white only” or "households with
> children under 18, Black only.” You can prefer Spanish-speaking because
> that isn't one of the protected classes under the law, but that one is
> tricky since it might be interpreted as “national origin.”
> “Spanish-speaking but not from Mexico” would not be considered fair.
>
> The issue is the protection of these specific protected classes.
>
> The law does not prohibit you from preferring based on other criteria.
>
> I’m not a lawyer — so always check with one — I’ve just been studying the
> Fair Housing Act in the context of excluding single women in various ways
> and claiming that sex has nothing to do with it.
>
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
>
>
>
>
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