Overview:
Under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), individuals with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations in housing, which may include assistance animals. Assistance animals can provide support or perform tasks for individuals with disabilities, such as guiding individuals who are blind, alerting individuals who are deaf, or providing emotional support to individuals with mental health conditions.
This course focuses on reasonable accommodation as it pertains to service and assistance animals. HUD issued new guidance as it pertains to animals. This guidance has generated FHA complaints concerning denial of reasonable accommodations. Disability access comprise almost 60% of all FHA complaints and those involving requests for reasonable accommodations for assistance animals are significantly increasing. Denying a reasonable accommodation for an assistance animal without engaging in the interactive process or based on assumptions or stereotypes about the individual's disability can be a violation of the FHA. If a complaint is filed, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) may investigate the matter and take enforcement action if necessary. It is important for housing providers to be aware of their obligations under the FHA and to handle requests for reasonable accommodations for assistance animals carefully and appropriately.
Areas Covered in this Training:
-Review of the protected classes.
-Time frames for decision on reasonable accommodation request
-HUD’s new ruling on verification of service or assistance animals
-Difference between service and assistance animals
-Definition of disability when concerning accommodation
-What questions may be asked about disability?
-Online animal verifications
Why Attend This Training:
This guidance is provided as a tool for housing providers and persons with a disability provides a set of best practices for addressing requests for reasonable accommodations to keep animals in housing where individuals with disabilities reside or seek to reside. We will discuss HUD’s new ruling on verification of service or assistance animals. This webinar will include the questions to ask in determining if the animal is a service animal or an assistive animal. The seminar covers the new time frame for answering requests for a reasonable accommodation for an animal. Also covered are the various questions concerning breed, weight, type, and size of the animal and methods used to verify need.
Suggested Attendees:
-Property Managers
-Property owners
-Leasing Consultants
-Housing Authority Staff
-Compliance staff
-Developers
Paul Flogstad
Paul has been involved in the real estate industry for the past 38 years. He has been involved in sales, construction, project management, appraisal, property management, and property management consulting/training.
Through his consulting company, Property Management Solutions, he provides training and consulting services nationwide to owners, management companies, multi-housing associations, as well as state and federal agencies.
He specializes in fair housing issues and has developed fair housing and outreach programs for governmental agencies as well as conducting seminars which are presented to property management companies, apartment associations, and the general public nationwide. Most recently, he has been a consultant to the State of South DakotaSept
For over twenty years he was involved in the appraisal of residential, multi-family, farm, and commercial properties throughout the Midwest. Most recently, he was a consultant for affordable, multi-housing properties in 22 different states. This involved properties in HUD, Rural Development, HOME, and Tax Credit programs.
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