The Urban Institute published the results of a study conducted in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Fort worth.
The researchers tried to figure out how landlords or real estate agents treat prospective tenants gays, lesbians or transgender persons in comparison with the tenants-heterosexual. All two thousand couples participated in the experiment differed only in sexual orientation.
The experiment has shown that, homeowners mostly in different attitudes to heterosexual and homosexual couples. Homosexuals and transgenders were offered fewer options of affordable housing, inflated prices and less willing agreed follow-up meeting with them.
«These results are important,» says Diana levy, the study’s author and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. «When people are discriminated against because of sexual orientation, it reduces their choices: where to live, where they will grow their children, where they will work».
Diana Levi adds that this is a pilot experiment (which, incidentally, was funded by the Department of housing and urban development, USA), and it doesn’t show the full picture, but it can lay the Foundation for more extensive research.
Only in the US, 20 States and Washington, D. C. officially prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in rental and sale of housing.
