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Whether anyone is actually enforcing that in a particular area may be a different matter. And whether or not it actually is enforceable is yet another. Who wou

Whether anyone is actually enforcing that in a particular area may be a different matter. And whether or not it actually is enforceable is yet another. Who would know if a small landlord passed over an applicant because they had a family? Maybe big landlords could be monitored, but I’ve Had a single rental house for 5 years and I’ve been through 2 tenants in that time, no one could detect any trends in that small sample.

lynx23 4y ago
It is weird to force a landlord to take customers they know they don't want. Especially when it comes to renting, where the behaviour of your customers does make a big difference. Looking at my current house, we have 10 appartments, and one family. Guess who is contributing to the noise the most? If I were a landlord, I'd also not take any families.
- ryan_j_naughton 4y ago
  > It is weird to force a landlord to take customers they know they don't want. What you call "weird" others call discrimination. Many racist folks didn't want to rent to black people or other minorities bc they "didn't want them". Others didn't want to rent to see senior citizens or people with disabilities. Protected classes exist for a reason! It is socially optimal to not allow businesses to discriminate against many groups of people.
  - htag 4y ago
    There's also an incredibly high bar to prove housing discrimination. It's not like all housing applications are reviewed by an enforcement agency and statistical anomalies in approval rates are investigated. Protected classes are really only protected from the most blatant forms of discrimination.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Is the opposite disallowed in the US? In Germany, we have plenty of housing coops and state run builders that e.g. discriminate against single (young?) men. I've tried half a dozen of these not-for-profit entities before I found one that said "we don't care who you are. If you want to live here and you can pay the rent, we're fine with it". The "no discrimination allowed" is often just "no discrimination allowed that we don't approve of".
    - runsWphotons 4y ago
      one day maybe all groups will be protected groups
  - lynx23 4y ago
    Sure, I get it. However, as a person with a disability, I can tell you one thing for sure: I much prefer knowing that someone doesnt want me. Imagine someone was forced by law to take you as a customer, but doesn't like you at all. Can you imagine how you are going to be treated? Doy ou really think insisting does improve things? I very much doubt that. I very much prefer living somewhere where there is no hate towards me. So, given that personal observation, I really ask myself: What good does it do to force people to cooperate with humans they dont like?
    - Johnny555 4y ago
      Imagine someone was forced by law to take you as a customer, but doesn't like you at all I don’t care if the pharmacy clerk likes me or approves of my lifestyle, but I do expect them to fill my prescription even if it’s against their feelings or religious beliefs. I don’t see how a fair society can exist without anti-discrimination laws.
      - lynx23 4y ago
        Your comparison isn't really appropriate. In a shop, I can walk in, get my stuff, and walk out in a few minutes. If you rent, your landlord will always be your landlord, and there are plenty of opportunities for ongoing conflict. As a person with disability, I know that I will loose if someone picks a fight with me. Maybe you should try to put yourself in the position of someone with lower priviledges before blindly insisting that anti-discrimination laws are all we need to fix things.
        Retric 4y ago
        They don’t suggest they actually fixed things, just that they were necessary. In a true profit maximizing meritocracy many disabled people would not be able to survive because nobody would employ them etc. The degree of accommodation required by law isn’t about the disabled so much as the issues should people be allowed to systematically exclude them.
        4y ago
  - alldayeveryday 4y ago
    [dead]
- smnrchrds 4y ago
  It would only be weird if we did not live in a society. We as a society have decided it is wrong, for example, to not hire someone because they have a disability and it would be an inconvenience to accommodate their disability, or to pay them less to account for the extra inconvenience, or to charge people with disabilities more for services (such as a plane ticket) because of those extra costs or inconveniences. We as a society have made similar decisions about treatment of people based on their ethnicity, gender, and many more criteria, including family status.
  - pc86 4y ago
    Keep in mind the accommodation has to be reasonable - which is, largely intentionally, left up for the courts to decide on a case-by-case basis.
- kube-system 4y ago
  That’s textbook discrimination. The reason it is banned is because people have a right to housing regardless of familial status and business owners desire to avoid inconvenience.
- distant_hat 4y ago
  Its often surprised me how anti-children many of the people in the West are. Children make noise, children are the future of your society. You make it difficult for families to live and children to be children and then are surprised when demographics are getting worse with no young folks. Interestingly, in India, the discrimination is the other way round and bachelors and unmarried folks find it harder to rent. Here there is no protection against that and a lot of listings, especially in good neighborhoods will explicitly specifiy, families only. People will conjure up parents and bring them over for a few months sometimes to make it look like they are a 'family'.
  - beebmam 4y ago
    It's not just the west. It's even worse in Chinese cities, for example. Maybe has something to do with age demographics.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    I don't mind children, but I prefer to not live around dysfunctional families that make the children run their household. People who say stuff like "children noise is the music of the future" have never lived below a family with children that really made noise (or I guess maybe they have, but they've lived in a bunker). I have, and you no longer live alone, you live with the constant noise that's sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but it's never gone unless you get ear plugs. I'm fine with children, but they need to have adults that reign them in. That's a coin flip, so I wouldn't ever move anywhere again, knowing that families with children live above/below/next to me.
    - lynx23 4y ago
      Full ACK. However, we are quite a minority. However, parents dont want to hear about their responsibilities...
      - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
        ACK==acknowledge?
- girvo 4y ago
  Your argument would be better if there was better, more available social housing. As there isn’t, and shelter should be considered a human right, discrimination must be discouraged.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Objectively it’s not weird where the law contradicts what you might prefer. If you want to discriminate you can discuss that without characterizing what’s normal or weird. But I suspect that doesn’t make you sound like a very good prospective landlord.
- skibidibipiti 4y ago
  [dead]
erispoe 4y ago
Some landlords are stupid enough to put it in writing.
abduhl 4y ago
You are allowed to discriminate when renting out your rental house assuming it’s a single family house and you’re the owner and not using an agent (under federal law, maybe not under state). So it’s not a lack of enforcement against small time landlords like you, it’s that it’s probably not illegal.

lynx23 4y ago

It is weird to force a landlord to take customers they know they don't want. Especially when it comes to renting, where the behaviour of your customers does make a big difference. Looking at my current house, we have 10 appartments, and one family. Guess who is contributing to the noise the most? If I were a landlord, I'd also not take any families.

ryan_j_naughton 4y ago
> It is weird to force a landlord to take customers they know they don't want. What you call "weird" others call discrimination. Many racist folks didn't want to rent to black people or other minorities bc they "didn't want them". Others didn't want to rent to see senior citizens or people with disabilities. Protected classes exist for a reason! It is socially optimal to not allow businesses to discriminate against many groups of people.
- htag 4y ago
  There's also an incredibly high bar to prove housing discrimination. It's not like all housing applications are reviewed by an enforcement agency and statistical anomalies in approval rates are investigated. Protected classes are really only protected from the most blatant forms of discrimination.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Is the opposite disallowed in the US? In Germany, we have plenty of housing coops and state run builders that e.g. discriminate against single (young?) men. I've tried half a dozen of these not-for-profit entities before I found one that said "we don't care who you are. If you want to live here and you can pay the rent, we're fine with it". The "no discrimination allowed" is often just "no discrimination allowed that we don't approve of".
  - runsWphotons 4y ago
    one day maybe all groups will be protected groups
- lynx23 4y ago
  Sure, I get it. However, as a person with a disability, I can tell you one thing for sure: I much prefer knowing that someone doesnt want me. Imagine someone was forced by law to take you as a customer, but doesn't like you at all. Can you imagine how you are going to be treated? Doy ou really think insisting does improve things? I very much doubt that. I very much prefer living somewhere where there is no hate towards me. So, given that personal observation, I really ask myself: What good does it do to force people to cooperate with humans they dont like?
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    Imagine someone was forced by law to take you as a customer, but doesn't like you at all I don’t care if the pharmacy clerk likes me or approves of my lifestyle, but I do expect them to fill my prescription even if it’s against their feelings or religious beliefs. I don’t see how a fair society can exist without anti-discrimination laws.
    - lynx23 4y ago
      Your comparison isn't really appropriate. In a shop, I can walk in, get my stuff, and walk out in a few minutes. If you rent, your landlord will always be your landlord, and there are plenty of opportunities for ongoing conflict. As a person with disability, I know that I will loose if someone picks a fight with me. Maybe you should try to put yourself in the position of someone with lower priviledges before blindly insisting that anti-discrimination laws are all we need to fix things.
      - Retric 4y ago
        They don’t suggest they actually fixed things, just that they were necessary. In a true profit maximizing meritocracy many disabled people would not be able to survive because nobody would employ them etc. The degree of accommodation required by law isn’t about the disabled so much as the issues should people be allowed to systematically exclude them.
        4y ago
- alldayeveryday 4y ago
  [dead]
smnrchrds 4y ago
It would only be weird if we did not live in a society. We as a society have decided it is wrong, for example, to not hire someone because they have a disability and it would be an inconvenience to accommodate their disability, or to pay them less to account for the extra inconvenience, or to charge people with disabilities more for services (such as a plane ticket) because of those extra costs or inconveniences. We as a society have made similar decisions about treatment of people based on their ethnicity, gender, and many more criteria, including family status.
- pc86 4y ago
  Keep in mind the accommodation has to be reasonable - which is, largely intentionally, left up for the courts to decide on a case-by-case basis.
kube-system 4y ago
That’s textbook discrimination. The reason it is banned is because people have a right to housing regardless of familial status and business owners desire to avoid inconvenience.
distant_hat 4y ago
Its often surprised me how anti-children many of the people in the West are. Children make noise, children are the future of your society. You make it difficult for families to live and children to be children and then are surprised when demographics are getting worse with no young folks. Interestingly, in India, the discrimination is the other way round and bachelors and unmarried folks find it harder to rent. Here there is no protection against that and a lot of listings, especially in good neighborhoods will explicitly specifiy, families only. People will conjure up parents and bring them over for a few months sometimes to make it look like they are a 'family'.
- beebmam 4y ago
  It's not just the west. It's even worse in Chinese cities, for example. Maybe has something to do with age demographics.
- luckylion 4y ago
  I don't mind children, but I prefer to not live around dysfunctional families that make the children run their household. People who say stuff like "children noise is the music of the future" have never lived below a family with children that really made noise (or I guess maybe they have, but they've lived in a bunker). I have, and you no longer live alone, you live with the constant noise that's sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but it's never gone unless you get ear plugs. I'm fine with children, but they need to have adults that reign them in. That's a coin flip, so I wouldn't ever move anywhere again, knowing that families with children live above/below/next to me.
  - lynx23 4y ago
    Full ACK. However, we are quite a minority. However, parents dont want to hear about their responsibilities...
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      ACK==acknowledge?
girvo 4y ago
Your argument would be better if there was better, more available social housing. As there isn’t, and shelter should be considered a human right, discrimination must be discouraged.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Objectively it’s not weird where the law contradicts what you might prefer. If you want to discriminate you can discuss that without characterizing what’s normal or weird. But I suspect that doesn’t make you sound like a very good prospective landlord.
skibidibipiti 4y ago
[dead]

erispoe 4y ago

Some landlords are stupid enough to put it in writing.

abduhl 4y ago

You are allowed to discriminate when renting out your rental house assuming it’s a single family house and you’re the owner and not using an agent (under federal law, maybe not under state). So it’s not a lack of enforcement against small time landlords like you, it’s that it’s probably not illegal.