A National Guardsman says he was denied an apartment because of his war service, and he is suing the anti-war landlord who told him that his service would be a “conflict of interest.”
In April Sgt. Joel Morgan, 29, visited a two-bedroom apartment that Janice Roberts was renting in Savin Hill, Massachusetts.
After viewing the apartment, Morgan, who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, received a voicemail from Roberts telling him, “it probably would be better for you to look for a place that is a little bit less politically active and controversial,” the Boston Herald reports.
“We are very adamant about our beliefs,” Roberts said in the voicemail.
Roberts has been a member of an activist group called the Garden of Enlightenment since 2000, and was “vigorously seeking an end to the Iraq War” during Morgan’s time in combat, she said in a statement provided to the Herald.
Last week, Morgan filed suit against Roberts, arguing that she violated a state law that prohibits landlords from refusing to rent to veterans.
“For her to do that to me, it was like a spit in the face,” Morgan said. “For what we have gone through overseas, to come home to our country and have people … discriminate against us … It made me extremely insecure about being a soldier.”
Roberts, though, said that there were more than 30 people who inquired about the apartment, and insisted that his military career had nothing to do with his chances of renting.
In a response to the lawsuit, Roberts said that Morgan failed to turn in a rental form and questioned his ability to pay rent. She also said that he had issues with a prior landlord and may have been “racially insensitive” when filing a noise complaint against past neighbors who were black.
Morgan, however, says that he decided not to turn in the rental form after receiving the voicemail, and denies any racist intent in the noise complaint.
“It’s illegal but also just unconscionable. It’s something any American should be embarrassed about,” said Joseph L. Sulman, Morgan’s attorney. (SEE ALSO: Elderly NJ woman faces eviction for hanging American flags)
Morgan served at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003 and was sent on combat tours to Iraq in 2007 and 2008 and to Afghanistan last year.