Limited housing options

LGBT students in Logan face unique conficts when searching for a place to live.

By Christopher Campbell

Old Farm Apartment Comples is one of the many off-campus housing options. Riley Densley Photo

In Utah, it is legal for employers and landlords to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Although there has been talk about adding those protections to the already existing state law that prevents discrimination on the basis of religion, sex, familial status, source of income, race, color, disability or national origin, landlords are allowed to deny housing based on whether or not people are members of the LGBT community.

Preston Hilburn, the field organizer for Equality Utah, said the bill that would add protections for LGBT people in housing and employment was stalled.

“When the decision came down to bring marriage equality to Utah the legislature decided that the emotions were too high regarding any bills that had anything to do with LGBT issues,” Hilburn said. “So they put a moratorium on that bill and any bill that had to do with any LGBT subject.”

A 2010 study by Equality Utah, published by the Williams Institute in January 2011, cites the majority of Utahns polled support laws that would grant protections to people in the state who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT. However, not everyone agrees statewide protection is necessary, including Paul Smith, the executive director of the Utah Apartment Association – a group that represents landlords in the state.

Smith said the association has no official position on the antidiscrimination laws and it has no reservations against LGBT people.

“On the other hand, any law that creates more liability for landlords has to be really carefully scrutinized,” Smith said. “And any law that creates more potentials for litigation has to be scrutinized.”

According to Smith, the association was supportive of Salt Lake City passing an ordinance that protects LGBT people partly because the fines for violating it were not too punitive. However, he said there were no complaints after it was passed for four or five years, and when one arose, it got settled.

“I’m really leery about passing legislation to solve problems that I don’t see are problems,” Smith said.

Smith said landlords usually do not discriminate based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Landlords are business people,” he said.

Smith said there are only four things landlords care about when choosing people to live there: whether they are on time paying rent, if they do damage to the property, if they commit crimes and if they annoy other residents.

Smith also said he has never seen a case in which an LGBT person complained about a landlord that was actually discrimination and not some other factor.

“It doesn’t mean there aren’t any,” he said. “I’m just saying that with as much exposure to as many landlords as I see on a daily basis in the past 13 years, never seen a single case.”

Hilburn agrees most people probably do not discriminate. However, he pointed out if the bill is passed it will not create a new law but update an existing one. He also said it is hard to measure the degree of discrimination in places where it is legal.

Alejandro Mora, associate director of Equality Utah, said a statewide law would be beneficial because the individual city ordinances do not guarantee any private right to action. This means the consequence of discrimination is the possibility an employer or landlord gets fined. There is no compensation for the person who was wronged.

“If you’re in a workplace environment or if you’re in a housing environment, you lose your home, you lose your job, you lose your ability to provide for yourself and your family,” Mora said. “There’s no way to be able to come back from that once discrimination has happened even with the ordinances.”

According to Mora, another reason a statewide bill would be beneficial is it would keep protections consistent especially among people who commute. People may live in one city where they are protected but work somewhere where they are not. The same can be true the other way around.

Mora also said discrimination against LGBT people in housing and workplace environments usually goes unreported.

“There are no reporting mechanisms for you to even file a complaint because it’s legal in our state so it’s really difficult to quantify that,” he said.

This is consistent with Equality Utah’s 2010 study in which 69.4 percent of lesbian, gay or bisexual people and 68 percent of transgender people who had undergone workplace discrimination said they never reported it to anyone.

Mora said people are often afraid of reporting discrimination because they do not want it to repeat.

“They are now in a position where they have to find a new job,” Mora said. “So I think in a very real way, it drives people back into the closet, and it just creates a very precarious situation for a lot of Utahns.”

According to Brooke Lambert, LGBTQA program coordinator in the Access and Diversity Center at USU, even if people never come forward when they are legally protected, it is still good to have anti-discrimination laws so there can be legal action if problems do occur.

“You shouldn’t wait for there to be a problem to fix the problem,” Lambert said.

LGBT housing situation in Logan. Logan is one of a handful of cities in Utah that have an anti-discrimination ordinance that includes LGBT people. Despite this, there are still complications in housing that arise among them, particularly for those who are transgender.

According to Alec Player, a sophomore transgender student majoring in biology and anthropology who works in the Access and Diversity Center at USU, LGBT people tend to stay away from on campus housing because it is not a safe environment.

“I have gay friends that have feared for their life living on campus housing,” Player said. “When you hear stories like that, you stop having any interest in moving onto campus housing.”

Player said it is also difficult for both LGBT people and people who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to find housing off-campus.

“I have so many friends who have a hard time finding a place to live whether they’re LGBT or whether they’re just not Mormon,” Player said. “Finding a place where you can just live your life without somebody butting in every second.”

Player said this is less common in bigger apartment complexes because there are enough people there to where the landlords do not have time or energy to harass people.

Player said it is dangerous for a transgender person to live in housing that is separated by gender. He said the first year he went to school at USU he would have had to live in female housing. However, when he started taking male hormones, he could be arrested for being around anything female specific.

Player, who never lived on campus, said he had the same complications when using the restroom.

“As soon as I’m taking male hormone replacement therapy, then I can’t go into women’s bathrooms without possibly being arrested for doing so,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m also at risk if I go into men’s bathrooms because they might kill me.”

Lambert said she has worked with housing to come up with solutions for transgender people who want to live on campus. She said when new housing is developed, which would not be for another 10 or 15 years, there would be more dorms having encapsulated, single rooms where gender is not divided.

“They can say, ‘This is where I want to live,’ and that’s where they’re put,” Lambert said. “And gender’s not taken into consideration at all.”

Whit Milligan, director of residence life on campus, said she did not know of any transgender students who live on campus at this time. She said in talking with Lambert, it was decided that if they were made aware of any, they would talk with the person and see where he or she feels most comfortable.

“I wouldn’t say we have this cut and dry policy, the rule, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’” Milligan said, “It’s, ‘Well, let’s find out what this individual needs and determine how we can best accommodate that.’”

Non-Mormon housing situation in Logan. The complications in Logan’s housing do not stop with LGBT people. It can also be difficult for people who are not part of the LDS church to find off-campus housing.

Allison Albert, a senior majoring in civil engineering, said it took her three weeks to find a place to live. One of the places she looked at had an advertisement that said “LDS preferred.” When she went there, the first question she was asked was whether or not she was Mormon. She told the woman who showed the apartment that she would rent it. However, the woman said she would let other people look at it before making a decision.

“I told her, ‘I’ll take it. I’ll give you the money today, the deposit,’” Albert said. “I mean who would pass that up?”

Kaisa Forsyth, a junior majoring in environmental engineering, said it is difficult to find a place to live with her fiancée off-campus.

“Logan seems to be a place where you either have to be married to live together or you have to have lots of friends who can get a house with you to live together,” Forsyth said.

Forsyth said she contacted on-campus housing first, but in order for a couple to live together, there needs to be proof of marriage. She said they do not want to get married at this point because they do not feel like they should speed up the process of their relationship just to find housing.

According to Milligan, the reason for this is upper administration originally decided since USU is a state institution, it would follow the state’s definition of marriage. She said this would be possible to change, but it would take the support from people in higher positions than her.

“We couldn’t just start doing it,” Milligan said. “We would need to go through a lot of different, appropriate channels.”

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Twitter: @ChrisCampbell02