enoughtohold:

It’s hard enough for most people to find a reasonable apartment for rent in Boston, but when you throw a child into the mix, it can be almost impossible.

Kara Olivere, a special education teacher in Arlington, spent nearly a year trying to find an apartment for herself and her 1-year-old. She rarely heard back from rental agents. “When I first started looking, I was very upfront about having a toddler,’’ Olivere said. After a while, she stopped mentioning her son, and voila, she got appointments to tour apartments. The agents would be friendly at the showing, she said, “but once I mentioned I had a child, their attitude would drastically change.’’

At a showing in Somerville, Olivere told the agent the apartment was rundown and wouldn’t be safe for her son. “You never told me you had a son,’’ the agent barked, adding that none of the nearby apartments were deleaded either. Olivere asked him what she was supposed to do as a parent trying to rent with a young child. “He said, ‘People with kids just buy,’’’ she recalled.

While getting the rental application for a nice apartment in Medford, Olivere asked who lived upstairs. The agent “said she wasn’t sure, but no one with kids, because the prior applicant was rejected for having a kid,’’ Olivere said. “I told her that was illegal and that I have a son.’’ Some awkward backpedaling followed, but Olivere didn’t get the apartment.

Having rented with roommates for years, Olivere said, it was always tough to find a decent apartment in the city, but renting with a child has put past searches in perspective. “It’s not that it was easy,’’ she said, “but the realtors were eager to work with you — you’d practically have to beat them off with a stick.’’ Renting with a kid, meanwhile, was a nonstarter. “My profession, income, credit, and savings are all better than they’ve ever been in the past,’’ she said, “but I couldn’t even get called back, much less see a place.’’

The law, meanwhile, is clear: It’s illegal not to rent to families with children or to offer them different rental terms — such as requiring families to live in a first-floor unit or charging them a security deposit when other tenants don’t pay one, said Jamie Langowski, assistant director of the Housing Discrimination Testing Program at Suffolk University Law School. The program tests for cases of housing bias primarily in Greater Boston, and unfortunately, Olivere’s experience isn’t unique. “There is rampant illegal discrimination occurring,’’ Langowski said.

“The tests are pretty straightforward, much like secret shopping,’’ Langowski said. Two testers who are similar in virtually every way except for one key variable — such as familial status, race, or gender identity — inquire about apartments, documenting their interactions with rental agents and landlords. “What we’ve found is that discrimination against families with children is common,’’ Langowski said, and prospective tenants are often told right to their faces that an apartment isn’t available to them because of their kids or the presence of lead paint.

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Families with young children face ‘rampant’ discrimination in apartment search