Fairness for gay families

They were known to their neighbors as Sister Tricia and Sister Keya.

They were not sisters, as in siblings or nuns. They were partners of more than 15 years and they were making a difference in a their neighborhood in the Quad-Cities, Ill., where I worked as a reporter for a daily newspaper in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Their neighborhood, their community, was managed by a local housing authority under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Tricia and Keya’s goal was to make their public housing complex feel like home, to inspire others to care about home sweet home and to lobby HUD for the right to manage their residences, their community, their lives. 

Sister Tricia and Sister Keya were vital to the neighborhood and to the movement, but one day I knocked on their door to interview them about a tenant-management issue and new occupants answered.

Sister Tricia and Sister Keya and their two children had been evicted for violating their tenant agreement, which allowed for family occupancy, but only certain kinds of family occupancy — a single parent with children, an extended family of blood relatives and a legally married couple with children.

Sister Tricia and Sister Keya were not sisters, and they were not married. They had no marriage license and, with no hope of securing one at that time, they lost their home, however transitional it might have been.

I’ve thought of Sister Tricia and Sister Keya many times over the years, wondering if they eventually settled in one of states where they now can marry, wondering whether they continue to organize and agitate, wondering how their children grew.

I thought of them last week when HUD announced a series of proposed initiatives that could dramatically impact same-sex couples and their families, whether they are seeking affordable housing assistance, buying a first home or needing help in their retirement years.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced that the department is submitting a proposed rule to make three changes to federal regulations.

The first involves including language that guarantees same-sex couples and their children are recognized as families covered by HUD programs, including housing assistance.

That hopefully would mean no more evictions of a same-sex couple from their home because they are not bound by blood or a marriage license.

The second change would require organizations that administer HUD grants to abide by state and local laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

The third change would emphasize that creditworthiness — not sexual orientation and not gender identity — is to be considered in the awarding of mortgage loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

A fourth proposal, though not a change in the federal regulations, would result in HUD conducting a nationwide survey of housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Donovan said the process to change the federal regulations would begin immediately and the survey is on the fast track.

The national survey would be the first of its kind, but prior studies at state and local levels show a pattern of housing discrimination against same-sex couples.

Two years ago, Michigan’s Fair Housing Centers examined bias based on sexual orientation using testers — some of them posing as same-sex couples and some as opposite-sex couples. The couples were paired, with the same-sex couples having better credentials — higher income, larger down payment, better credit — than the opposite-sex couples.

The testers inquired about rental housing, homes for sale and financing options. They tested housing opportunities in rural areas and metropolitan centers, small towns and cities, college communities and suburbs.

“Testing by the Michigan Fair Housing Centers uncovered widespread discrimination against same-sex couples,” the study states.

In one out of four tests, there were disparities in how the couples were treated. The study found same-sex couples were given higher rental rates and that opposite-sex couples received more encouragement to apply for housing.

The Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 bans discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and familial status in the rental, sale, and financing of housing. Congress is not on the fast track to amending that law, leaving a patchwork of protections in states and localities, leaving LGBTs sometimes literally out in the cold.

HUD’s work to roll out the welcome mat provides some comfort.