On November 4, the Baltimore County Council voted in favor of “The Home Act” which forbids landlords from refusing to accept Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers as well as all other legal alternative forms of payment for rent.
Ben Frederick was a guest on NPR local affiliate WYPR’s radio program called “Mid Day with Tom Hall”. Click here to view this program where Source of Income and the Home Act were discussed with Ben, Baltimore Councilman Julian Jones, and WYPR news report John Lee.
The law also requires, for example, landlords to accept co-signers on a lease, meaning undergrad college students without a job cannot be unilaterally rejected if their parents can afford the rent.
Baltimore County provides an exception. Landlord’s may refuse the Voucher program if the landlord owns 3 or fewer buildings, each of those buildings contains 4 or fewer units, the landlord offers for rent only 1 or 2 units in a given 12-month period, and the landlord does not advertise that vouchers and co-signers are not accepted.
Baltimore County prohibits discrimination in housing based on these characteristics:
- race
- creed
- reiligion
- color
- sex
- age
- national origin
- marital status
- sexual orientation
- gender identity or expression
- status as a veteran.
At Ben Frederick Realty, Inc., we strongly support policies, procedures, and most importantly, actions, where all people are treated with respect and dignity and the availability of housing is offered regardless of a person’s status in any protected class. We advocate rental property owners, agents, and service providers treat everyone with quality service regardless of their status in any protected class. It is encouraging that a HUD study, conducted by the Urban Institute, showed a 90% reduction in the incidence of rental housing discrimination from 1977 to the present
