Fair housing laws don't just protect people who have disabilities from disability discrimination. Apartment dwellers who used to have a disability and even some who never had a disability may be protected, too.
There are three main types of situations where you may be protected against disability discrimination even if you're not disabled:
- Your roommate has a disability. If you're looking for an apartment with someone who has a disability, or if you're currently rooming with such a person, you're protected against disability discrimination. After all, if your landlord doesn't want to rent to your roommate or renew her lease because she's disabled, that affects you, too.
- You have a "record of" being disabled. You're protected against discrimination from your landlord for a disability that you no longer have or that you've been misclassified as having.
- You're "regarded as" having a disability. If your landlord takes discriminatory action against you because he thinks (correctly or incorrectly) that you have a disability, you're protected. For example, consider a landlord who ignorantly assumes that because a prospective tenant is gay, he must have HIV or AIDS, and rejects that tenant. Because HIV and AIDS are considered disabilities, a gay prospect would be protected against disability discrimination -– even if he's perfectly healthy with no impairments. This seemingly small point can be key to obtaining justice because only certain states and municipalities (and not federal law) offer protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
