A family believes that they were denied a unit in a co-op housing complex because their baby is a girl not a boy.

When Kristjan Gottfried and his wife Michelle Hurtig got the news that they were next in line for an apartment in a co-op housing complex in a very desirable and expensive city, they felt like they hit the jackpot.

They never imagined that their dreams would be crushed by the sex of their unborn baby.

Once their application for a two-bedroom unit was on the top of the list, they were told that they would need to know the sex of the unborn baby before they could proceed any further.

At the time, the couple was seven months pregnant and had a two-year-old son, Finnley.

They were told that if the baby was a girl that the available unit would go to another applicant because boys and girls cannot share rooms under the co-ops rules. That meant the family would have to wait for a three-bedroom apartment to become available, which in reality could take years.

The co-op refused to provide a copy of their rules, however Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation guidelines suggest children of opposite sexes cannot share a room if they are over the age of five, but kids of the same sex are free to do so.

The couple believes it should be up to the parents to decide when and if children should share a room.

"I would describe it as being completely outrageous and appalling and just unbelievable," Gottfried said.

"No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't really wrap my brain around it," Hurtig says.

Their one-income family is tight on money, so getting the unit would mean their rent drops from $1840 to $895 a month, a huge difference for the growing family.

"It's discrimination. We get the room if our children are the same sex and we don't get the room if our children are not the same sex. It's very, very clear-cut discrimination," Gottfried said.

The couple at the time didn't know the sex of their child, and while the co-op agrees that's a fine decision, it meant they they couldn't get the apartment.

"We cannot offer you the unit because you do not know the sex of your child." a women who identified herself as the co-chair of the housing co-op.

They were then asked to get in touch with the company in August to inform them of the sex of their baby.

In late August the couple welcomed a baby girl, Fjola, into their family.

The co-op board has since denied that the family was considered for the unit in the first place. They said, that Gottfried originally got their attention with a flood of text messages of her allegedly trying to influence the process.

Regardless of what actually happened, the rule that two different gendered children cannot share a room is believed to be outdated.

"Frankly, I am incredulous that somebody would ask the gender of somebody's baby before it's born," says Jennifer Ramsay, spokesperson for the Ontario Human Rights Legal Support Centre.

With the housing crisis facing many major cities, Ramsay says the rules need to change in order to help families.

"It's just getting worse. And to arbitrarily deny someone housing based on the fact that their children may be of different genders "” it's completely absurd," she said.

"Sure, everybody would love to have their own bedroom. But that's not the reality. People can't afford one bedroom per child," Ramsay said.

For Gottfried and Hurtig, that means they are looking for a new place to live.

"Just kind of makes you feel sick to your stomach ... I was super excited about having a girl and I still am. I'm just disappointed it will cost us," Hurtig said.

"I felt really discriminated against and kind of like an opportunity was stolen from our family."

Source: CBC