28, Oct 2015

‘Housing For All’ by 2022 may be the new mantra of the government in the state and Centre. But the city seems to have no apartment that a transgender person can rent out. Urmi Jadhav, research associate at Humsafar Trust, which works for the LGBT community in the city, had to vacate her rented her apartment located in Santa Cruz (east) because the society and the landlord felt that a transgender person should not live in their society.
“I had rented the apartment in Good Luck Housing Society in Vakola at Santa Cruz (east). I had also made an agreement with the landlady for 11 months and also completed the police verification for the same, but after four months the landlady demanded that I vacate the apartment without giving me any reason,” she said.
Urmi moved in to the apartment in June 2015, but she was asked to vacate the apartment in the end of September 2015, though the agreement allows her legally to reside in the apartment till May 2016.
Urmi said, “I was not given any reason for the landlady asking me to vacate the apartment. But, some other society members verbally told me that the only reason behind it was that I’m transgender. I have faced this many times in the past 15 years.”
When this newspaper tried to get in touch with the landlady, she disconnected the phone on being asked the reason behind her asking Urmi to vacate the apartment.