Accommodations

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This month’s lesson tackles one of the most challenging aspects of fair housing law: how to handle requests for assistance animals as a reasonable accommodation for an individual with a disability.

     In general, communities may set their own policies regulating pet ownership, but federal fair housing law does not consider assistance animals as pets, but rather as auxiliary aids that provide assistance to individuals with disabilities.

In this special issue of the COACH, we look at several court decisions released this year involving fair housing claims. Often, the media reports reflect only bad news: Communities forced to shell out hefty cash payments in damages, penalties, or settlements to resolve allegations of fair housing violations. But those reports tell only half the story. Though it rarely makes the news, communities can—and often do—win court battles to defend themselves against fair housing claims.

Effective communications with prospects, applicants, and residents are an essential aspect of all community operations. It’s especially important in your leasing office where miscommunications can undermine your efforts to attract qualified applicants to fill vacancies. Communication problems aren’t just bad for your bottom line: Misunderstandings about leasing opportunities or rental terms often lead to suspicions of discriminatory motives, triggering a fair housing complaint.

This month, Fair Housing Coach reviews the fair housing implications of how owners and managers handle environmental concerns in the maintenance and upkeep of the community.

Rental housing providers are subject to various laws, health and safety codes, and other regulations that require them to maintain communities in a safe and healthy manner. In general, these rules address noxious substances known to be harmful to human health, such as lead-based paint, mold, radon, carbon monoxide, and other contaminants.

This month’s lesson reviews fair housing requirements with respect to older applicants and residents. Aging isn’t a protected characteristic under federal fair housing law, but there are many ways in which communities could face fair housing problems when dealing with older applicants and residents.

This month, we're going to review the fair housing rules requiring communities to address the disability-related needs of individuals with mobility impairments.

Communities should expect increased demand to meet those requirements. Currently, veterans are returning from active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other war-ravaged parts of the world. Up to a quarter of them have some type of service-related disability—including loss of lower limbs and other serious mobility impairments.

This month, we're going to discuss the fair housing implications of a significant problem: hoarding. Many of us collect or keep objects—perhaps more than we should—because they have sentimental value or we may “need them someday.” But compulsive hoarding is more than simply having too much clutter.

This month, we're going to discuss federal laws about when—and under what circumstances—communities must allow people to bring animals onto the property.

This month Fair Housing Coach focuses on reasonable accommodation requests by individuals with disabilities. It can be a confusing topic, so we're going to go over the fair housing rules and dispel common misconceptions about how to handle these requests properly.