A United Front Against Service Member Discrimination in Housing: Advocating for the Inclusion of Military Status as a Protected Group Under Federal Law

As I quickly mow my lawn in a paranoid state, I think about what it would be like to not have a landlord. To not be a renter and, instead, to own my own home. I would not have to worry about a landlord that becomes visibly upset if I don’t mow the lawn often enough. I wouldn’t have a landlord that lives next door to me and recalls my daily activities to me when we have a disagreement, wondering if he is watching me through his window and critiquing how I am mowing the lawn this very moment. I would not have a landlord that leaves me an angry voicemail because the water bill that he pays for was too high for his liking. But then, I wonder, what am I complaining about? I survived the application process and got the house, didn’t I? I wasn’t openly discriminated against during that process. Who cares if, now that I live here, my retired landlord has nothing but time on his hands that he can use to nag me? I got the house to begin with. Many people don’t make it past that stage. I would not label my experience as horrible, or even bad enough to make me look for another place to live, for that matter. But it does make me wonder about the possible plights of other tenants. More specifically, those who may not be members of a protected class, a group people who benefit from protection by statute , depending on the laws of the state in which they reside. One such group that is of concern is that of military service members who may be denied access to certain dwellings as a result of their service. Landlords may not want to take the chance on a service members that might not know whether they will be able to live in that dwelling for the full term of the lease agreement. Blogs after blogs echo cries for help from service members in the United States military, asking whether there is anything that can be done if they were turned down from renting an apartment or home because of their military status. These brave men and women are certain that they just experienced an illegal form of discrimination and that there must be remedies available to them. But, in many states, there is no form of relief or protection from being discriminated against based on military status as it is not a protected class of people in many federal statutes. This paper will focus on the discriminatory behavior of landlords towards service men and women, the statutory and regulatory protections in place to prevent certain types of housing discrimination, and any possible relief for servicemember tenants. It will not discuss discriminatory mortgage or lending practices but, rather, this paper will focus on discriminatory refusal to rent or sell property and on discriminatory treatment of service members after they have acquired the property. Section I will discuss background information in terms of housing discrimination in general as well as housing discrimination specifically related to service members. Section I will also introduce and give background information pertaining to what will be referred to as "puzzle pieces", the protective housing laws related to service members - the Fair Housing Act and the Service members Civil Relief Act. Section II of this paper is devoted to further explaining those protective housing laws and the details of the laws. Section III will discuss finding a way to make these "puzzle pieces" fit in order to protect service members from being discriminated against in the housing market, based on their military status. This section will also discuss any possible adverse effects these very laws may create.