CHICAGO—Studies will commence Thursday to decide whether LGBT people face housing discrimination. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department will seek help from Chicago, New York and San Francisco residents to decide how the study should be carried out.

As this will be the first government study on the issue, designers will have to craft it to ensure it is testing an actual bias.

Those testing “have to think of a way to make it clear that this is a gay couple and not just two men who really can’t afford to do anything than get a single apartment with a single room,” said John Knight of the American Civil Liberties Union.

While Chicago, New York and San Francisco all ban housing discrimination, the federal Fair Housing Act does not cover LGBT people. This study may be the first step in changing that fact.

“It finally will give us hard data to back up the heartbreaking stories of discrimination we’ve been hearing for years,” said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “This HUD study will show that there are a class of people … who have been repeatedly shut out of that portion of the American dream.”

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