April is Fair Housing Awareness Month

Massachusetts is one of a majority of states that has its own fair housing law.

If you're renting or looking for an apartment in Massachusetts, you're covered by the Fair Housing Act (FHA), a federal law, which protects tenants and prospective tenants alike from illegal housing discrimination based on the following protected classes:

race
color
religion
national origin
sex
disability
familial status.

In addition to these protected classes, Massachusetts offers legal protection based on:

Sexual orientation ("which shall not include persons whose sexual orientation involves minor children as the sex object")
age (greater than 40 years)
genetic information
ancestry
marital status
veteran status
military status

To be clear it is illegal to discriminate against any of the above mentioned groups. Should you find yourself excluding the people in these protected class you could wind up in court.