Mobile does not prohibit landlord refusal to accept Section 8 housing-choice vouchers or other lawful sources of income. Alabama law does not list source of income as a protected class, and HB 354 of 2017 limited expansion of local protections.
Federal fair-housing law protects race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability, but not source of income. Some states and cities have added voucher protection by ordinance; Alabama has not, and Alabama House Bill 354 enacted in 2017 preempted local ordinances that added LGBTQ+ protections beyond state law, signaling state hostility to expanded local civil-rights ordinances. Mobile landlords therefore retain discretion to decline vouchers, though they cannot use vouchers as a pretext for discrimination based on a federally protected characteristic.
Refusing a voucher purely on its source is lawful in Mobile, but using voucher refusal to mask race, disability, or familial-status discrimination violates federal Fair Housing Act protections.
See how Mobile's source-of-income discrimination rules stack up against other locations.
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