A Bronx Tale of Denial, Then Harrassment

Many apartment residents need to have a change made to a policy or practice as an accommodation for a disability. Owners must consider all such "reasonable accommodation" requests, then grant them if there's evidence that the resident has a qualifying disability under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and needs the accommodation for that disability, and if the request is reasonable.

A new Charge brought by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) against a New York City cooperative claims that not only did the cooperative wrongfully deny a resident's request to keep an emotional support animal (despite a no-pets policy), but the cooperative harassed the resident because of it.

According to the Charge, the cooperative refused to accept the resident’s rent payments, threatened to suspend his garage privileges, and attempted to evict him from his apartment. In addition, the cooperative's security director allegedly didn't stop his officers from harassing the resident and his wife for keeping the service animal, even after the tenant specifically asked him to do so.

A HUD administrative law judge is expected to hear the case.

Interesting to note:

• The cooperative, known as "Co-op City" and located in the Bronx, has 15,372 apartments in 35 high-rise buildings and seven townhouse clusters, housing roughly 50,000 low- and middle-income residents.
  
  
• The cooperative appears to have been familiar with the FHA's requirement, having given the resident its own "Application for Reasonable Accommodation of Dog Application Form" to complete.
  
  
• According to the Charge, the cooperative stopped contesting the dog's presence on account of New York City's three-month waiver rule. Read my About.com article for more information on this rule.
  
  

Invalid Reasons for Denying Modification/Accommodation Requests - Part 2

Here's another recent example of an owner or property manager denying a modification/accommodation request for an invalid reason. Unlike the first example, however, this owner appears to have tried to comply with relevant laws, but his research efforts came up short.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Charge of Discrimination of February 9, 2011, the owner and manager of an Oyster Bay, New York coop repeatedly denied a resident's request for an assigned accessible parking space. The resident, who suffers from neuropathy and can't walk long distances, claimed he needed the space as a reasonable accommodation for his disability.

After the resident was not allowed to reserve one of the two designated accessible parking spaces closest to the entrance, he had to compete for an accessible space with other residents or park further away from his apartment.

The owner and manager denied the resident's request, claiming that they were "in full compliance with local codes regarding handicap parking." That may be, but they apparently were unaware of the Fair Housing Act's requirement to consider accommodation requests from residents — and grant them if they're reasonable.

HUD Pushes Forward With LGBT Proposals

In October 2009, I blogged about how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced certain proposals aimed at ensuring that people can participate in federal housing programs without regard to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Yesterday, HUD followed up with an announcement that shows the department is committed to turning its proposals into reality:

1. HUD's proposed rule. HUD issued a proposed rule that takes certain measures aimed at protecting renters and homeowners from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Among the measures are:
   
   
   • a provision clarifying that the term "family," as used to describe eligible beneficiaries of public housing and voucher programs (which currently provide assistance to over three million families), includes LGBT applicants;
     
     
   • a provision broadly defining gender identity as "actual or perceived gender-related characteristics" (emphasis added); and
     
     
   • a provision specifying that any FHA-insured mortgage loan must be based only on the credit-worthiness of a borrower, without regard to characteristics such as sexual orientation and gender identity.
   
   The rule ("Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs — Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity") will be published in the Federal Register on Monday, January 24, at which time public comments will be accepted for a 60-day period.
   
   
2. HUD's first-ever national study. HUD announced it will conduct the first-ever national study of discrimination against members of the LGBT community in both the rental and sale of housing. In the past, HUD has conducted such a study only on the basis of race and color.

Fair Housing Month: Compliance Training for Multifamily Professionals

Too often, good landlords, property managers, and other multifamily professionals are unfairly accused of housing discrimination when they did nothing wrong. Other times, housing professionals with the best of intentions make costly mistakes that could have been avoided with a greater understanding of fair housing compliance.

Fair Housing Helper addresses these situations with an online fair housing compliance training program aimed at helping multifamily professionals avoid violations — so they can focus their time and money on growing their business.

Fair Housing Month may be coming to an end, but compliance concerns last all year round. Sign up (with no obligation) at fairhousinghelper.com to be among the first to learn about the new training when it launches and receive special notification of savings.

That wraps up this special "Fair Housing Month" feature at Fairhousingblog.com. Hopefully, you found the series interesting and thought-provoking. You can read the press release for more information, if you wish, or access all blog posts in this series.

Federal Government Takes Aim at LGBT Housing Inequality

The Obama administration recently announced proposals that would give individuals greater rights when it comes to their choice of housing, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Chief among these initiatives is a proposed rule aimed at ensuring that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community is included in federal housing programs.

This would be accomplished by:

• making clear that the term "family," as used to describe eligible beneficiaries of public housing and voucher programs (which currently provide assistance to over three million families), includes LGBT applicants;
• requiring program participants to comply with state and local fair housing laws that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity; and
• specifying that any FHA-insured mortgage loan must be based only on the credit-worthiness of a borrower, without regard to characteristics such as sexual orientation and gender identity.

In addition to the proposed rule, HUD announced it will commission the first-ever national study of discrimination against members of the LGBT community in both the rental and sale of housing.

Missing from the current set of proposals is an amendment to the Fair Housing Act to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. Will this come next? Should it?

What do you think?

Cooperative Pays Price for Running Unqualified Senior Housing

The owners and board of directors of a 104-unit Wilmette, Illinois cooperative apparently knew that the Fair Housing Act exempts senior housing properties from the ban against familial status discrimination. But what they didn't seem to know is that your property has to qualify as senior housing before you can safely start discriminating against families with children.

The problem arose in 2006 when individual unit owners tried to sell their unit to a family that had two young children. The cooperative blocked the sale, pointing to a rule that the "community is not considered suitable for children under 18 years of age." A local HUD-funded fair housing enforcement agency promptly filed a fair housing complaint with HUD, arguing that the cooperative can't discriminate against families with children if it's not truly senior housing.

The legal dispute recently led to a settlement, announced January 14, 2009. Under the terms of the settlement, the cooperative will begin to operate the property as a "55 and older" senior community. But it must pay — $20,000 to the fair housing agency and $8,000 as a civil penalty — plus agree to fair housing training, monitoring, and extensive advertising showing continued compliance with the Fair Housing Act.

Coop in the Doghouse for 'Unreasonable' Support Animal Rules

HUD issued a discrimination charge, dated September 29, 2008, against a New York City coop for not allowing a family to keep a dog to help their autistic child. After the 11-year-old boy's doctor told his parents she's prescribing an emotional support animal, the parents requested an exception to the coop's no-pet policy as a reasonable accommodation for their son's disability.

The coop agreed to let the parents get a support dog for their son, but with conditions that the parents alleged were unreasonable, including:

• Requiring the parents to purchase a $1 million liability insurance policy
• Imposing a weight limit of under ten pounds
• Banning the use of the passenger elevator when transporting the dog
• Imposing a two-hour limit on how long the dog may be left alone in the coop
• Requiring that the dog be muzzled while in the common areas

HUD agreed with the parents, charging the coop with violating the Fair Housing Act's ban on disability discrimination. A HUD administrative law judge will hear the matter, unless the coop or the parents choose to bring the case to a federal district court.

Discrimination in Iowa Housing Ads Rare

Now that the Fair Housing Act (FHA) has been on the books for 40 years, the Iowa Civil Rights Commission decided to conduct a statewide study to determine compliance levels when it comes to advertisements for residential rentals and sales.

In a press release dated October 24, 2008, the Commission reported that a mere .79% of the ads analyzed in the study — 76 of 9,646 — were flagged as "possibly discriminatory." Roughly half of these — 40 of 76 — were "likely disriminatory," with 36 of the 40 ads running afoul of the FHA's ban on familial status discrimination. The Commission also noted that no single publication it reviewed contained more than four possibly discriminatory ads.

Owners Balk After Trash Talk

Most cases involving reasonable accommodations for disabilities follow a familiar formula:

1. Resident requests accommodation
2. Owner ignores/denies request
3. Resident sues

But in a recent case from Puerto Rico (which, as part of the United States, is covered by the Fair Housing Act), there was a twist. The owners of a coop decided to shut down the trash room on each floor of their building and require residents to personally dispose of their trash outside. A resident with fibromyalgia, fatigue, and depression claimed that her disabilities prevented her from complying, and so the owners agreed to collect her trash. However, after collecting the resident's trash on three occasions, the owners reversed course. Not only did they stop accommodating the resident, who continued to leave trash outside her door for collection, but they issued a resolution reprimanding the resident for her behavior and ordering the resident to dispose of her trash in an indoor receptacle that was too small.

The resident filed a fair housing complaint with HUD, and four months later, the owners reversed course again. This time, they gave the resident a key to access the trash room on her floor. Problem solved, it would seem, but the damage was done. On August 5, 2008, HUD charged the owners with discrimination, finding that the resident "suffered... emotional and physical distress, embarrassment and humiliation." Among other damages, HUD's attorneys are requesting a $16,000 penalty for each violation.