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4br - Discrimination against families with children is illegal! (Morgantown)
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Under the Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to discriminate in housing on the basis of seven protected classes, including race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, and familial status. Familial status refers to the presence of children under the age of 18 in a household. This means that it is illegal nationwide to discriminate in housing against families with children.
One form of familial status discrimination involves unfairly restricting the number of individuals that can live in a home. Many cities and counties have occupancy standards, which limit the number of people that can live in a unit, but some landlords might try to set a lower limit than the city or county. Doing so could be familial status discrimination.
For example, let’s say that a bedroom is large enough for a parent and a young child, but a housing provider requires the parent to rent two bedrooms. This is likely illegal familial status discrimination, since the housing provider is disparately burdening families with children.
A good rule of thumb for how many people can reside in a unit is that generally two people can reside in each bedroom plus one additional person in the home. The chart above shows the likely number of people that should be allowed to live in homes of various sizes.
You can learn more about your fair housing rights by watching this ERC video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cjmJZHKX-Q&t=1s
You can also check out this blog post on familial status protections and occupancy standards: https://equalrightscenter.org/occupancy-familial-status-discrimination/
If you believe you may have experienced housing discrimination based on familial status or another protected class, you can contact the Equal Rights Center. To report your experience, please call show contact info or email show contact info .
The information contained in this publication is not legal advice and should not be construed as such. For legal advice, please contact an attorney.