It how somehow escaped my attention that the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston sue several parties for carrying ads with phrases such as: “all of your neighbors in this loft building are professionals”; “great location for Medical area or Northeastern students”; “four bed … great for four or five people”; “owner lives in the building and is older so not a place for partying.”
Is it illegal to discriminate against non-professionals? non-Northeastern students? people who like to sleep one in a bed? loud partiers? I suppose these are supposed to be “code words” for discriminatory classfications, but you’d have to be smarter than I am to figure out what, as it strikes me that professionals, partiers, medical workers, etc., come from all groups. This is right out of You Can’t Say That! (chapter 1 has a lengthy discussion of overzealous fair housing rules.)
I’m quoted in the piece, noting that I was annoyed when a realtor told me she couldn’t infomrm me where the local synagogues were (this was pre-Internet). The reporter quotes Eric Bove, attorney for the Holyoke, Mass., Housing Discrimination Project, as stating: “If we know someone is Jewish and say a place is near a synagogue, there’s a not-so-subtle message that’s where we think Jewish people should move.” But what if the Jewish person wants to know where the synagogues are? What if the African American househunter wants to know whether there are any other black people in the neighborhood? Information can be used for good or ill purposes, and the government has no business prohibiting the dissemination of truthful information.
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