Donald Trumps Civil Rights Office for Housing Has Found the Real Problem: Pets

[riversedge]

Donald Trump’s Civil Rights Office for Housing Has Found the Real Problem: Pets

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/23/emotional-support-animals-housing-law/



Rachel M. Cohen

March 23 2018, 8:51 a.m.

The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development was designed to confront discrimination, segregation, and poverty. Instead, under the Trump administration, the agency is gearing up to confront a much stranger boogeyman: The emotional support snake................................................

The federal housing agency has been meeting with representatives from housing industry groups, including the National Apartment Association, it has so far ignored entreaties from fair housing and disability rights groups to hold similar meetings, representatives of those groups say.

“The National Fair Housing Alliance has reached out to HUD about accommodation verification, but HUD has declined, thus far, to confer with us regarding this particular matter,” said Morgan Williams, the group’s general counsel, in a statement to The Intercept. “We expect HUD would meet with fair housing and disability rights advocates in the course of any consideration of guidance on reasonable accommodations and assistance animals under the Fair Housing Act.”

Brian Sullivan, a spokesperson for HUD, told The Intercept that the agency has no comment at this time on whether it plans to issue further guidance on emotional support animals.

The agency’s refusal to publicly comment on the issue, combined with its meetings with housing industry groups, has advocates bracing for things to get worse. Under federal law, individuals with physical or mental disabilities can bring assistance animals with them on planes or keep them in their homes, and they can also bring trained service dogs to other public places. But in just a few short years, 21 states have moved to criminalize the misrepresentation of such animals, with another 13 drafting similar legislation to take up this year. Advocates note that evidence for a supposed fake assistance animal crisis has been extremely limited, and many times outrage can be traced back to mental health stigma more generally.

“There are unfortunately people who take advantage of laws intended to protect people with disabilities, but I think the problem has been blown completely out of proportion,” said Marcy LaHart, an attorney in Florida who represents individuals denied reasonable animal accommodations. “What I see far more is people who have legitimate mental health issues — things like depression, anxiety, and panic attacks — who are harassed because they don’t know what they need to do, what they need to provide, to verify their legitimate need. They’re automatically assumed to be frauds because they don’t ‘look disabled.’”.

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