Town of Arlington, Fair Housing Action Plan (July 2021)

Citation: Town of Arlington, Fair Housing Action Plan (July 2021)
Jurisdiction: Arlington (municipal)
Source: Official source
Original Source: https://www.arlingtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/57214/637641171662530000 ↗

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Family Status
Family status—or the presence of children—is a major factor in defining housing needs. Households reporting at
least one child under 18 years old are considered by the Census Bureau as households with children. Depending
on the number of children, a family may need a larger unit with more bedrooms. Families may choose to
prioritize housing in locations served by good schools or with access to programs and resources. Families with
children can also experience a particular form of housing discrimination: in addition to the perception that
children may be noisy or disturb other tenants, if a family with a child under six years old will be living in a unit
that was built before 1978, the owner must remove or mitigate lead paint. While financial assistance is
available for this purpose, some landlords may (illegally) decline to rent to families with young children to avoid
performing lead paint mitigation.
Of the 18,632 (±393) households in Arlington, 31% (5,741 ± 243) have children. By percentage of households
with children, Arlington in the middle of the comparison region, which ranges from 43% (±1%) in Lexington to
18% (±1%) in Somerville. The aggregated statistic for the region was 26%, meaning that more families in
Arlington have children than in the comparison region as a whole. A greater share of families with children lives
in the more suburban communities to the west of Boston and in the cities of Everett and Chelsea. Except for those
two cities, the municipalities with the highest share of households with children roughly align with those whose

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Arlington Fair Housing Action Plan