The solution to the “female only” or the religiously observant household is for the renters/buyers to self-select and organize themselves. I don’t see why the landlord/seller needs to mandate it.

I think it's because the only two options being presented are a group of people signing one lease with one landlord. Or a group of people individually signing leases with the landlord.

So basically, the problem is for people that can't find a group on their own. Or for a landlord who wants to act like every room is an apartment, when they're clearly not.

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bsghirt 3 days ago | parent [-]

You can't find a group of people to share a lease with, but you want to live in a residence which excludes people by race or gender? Sounds like a you problem.

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bluGill 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

There are a significant amount of people who care about gender such that it makes sense for landlords to discriminate by shared unit. They should have a mix of male only and female only units. (and if they want mix units). In the US not enough people care about the religion of their roommate to be worthwhile trying to find a fair solution to those who care (if you do care you can ask at your church).

It is important to ensure that when you allow such discrimination it is by unit and that landlords not be allowed to discriminate overall

	▲	itake 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The problem currently isn't the landlords, but the tenants and subtenants. Maybe if landlords could offer more shared housing, this problem would go away. But tenants frequently look for people of the same gender or race to rent a shared housing. The other (smaller) issue I think is house hackers (landlord occupied properties). The landlord doesn't own multiple units and is effectively "airbnb-ing" out rooms for short term leases.

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TimorousBestie 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, I don’t get it either. The typical roommate situation around here is between two or four in one unit. Maybe it was harder in the days before the internet, but I expect that even then the kinds of tight-knit religious communities that would be opposed to cohabiting outside the faith would have the internal social networking infrastructure to solve this problem.

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itake 3 days ago | parent [-]

How does social media solve the issue? I don't think it matters if the landlord or the tenant is advertising sexist/racist housing opportunities, its still sexist and racist, blocking certain groups from accessing housing.

Landlords can't advertise racist/sexist whole-unit housing. Primary tenants shouldn't be allowed to advertise racist/sexist housing either.

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TimorousBestie 3 days ago | parent [-]

> How does social media solve the issue?

Huh? Who said anything about social media? Churches and other religious organizations are basically designed to promote and foster these kinds of in-group relationships.

> Landlords can't advertise racist/sexist whole-unit housing. Primary tenants shouldn't be allowed to advertise racist/sexist housing either.

It would be very strange to tell someone they can’t decide their own roommate because their selection would be “racist/sexist.” I’m trying to imagine how you would even go about enforcing that at the individual level. Is your plan to assign housing randomly with some centralized lottery system? Extract affadavits from prospective tenants?

Do you believe it’s sexist for a heterosexual woman to use a dating website to look for a husband and not a wife? I don’t see why your logic wouldn’t apply there.

	▲	itake 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You mentioned the internet. Way more people look for housing on social media than on church websites. If non-profits and governments can operate SROs, hacker houses can operate co-ed inclusive housing, I don't see why people feel they . Are we talking about dating or housing? Society agrees everyone deserves a place to live. Society (mostly) agrees that no one deserves romance.