What is one of the largest fines you think a housing provider—like landlords, condo HOAs/boards, and state and local housing authority offices—has had to pay due to turning away emotional support and service animals?
If you guessed one million dollars, then kudos to you, yet the real winners when it comes to fair housing laws are those who uphold them.
As a Fair Housing DECODER, I see the proverbial emotional support elephant in the room: at times, animals (including legally allowed emotional support and service) can be, at best, a nuisance and, at worse, destructive, making them costly despite being medically necessary.
How do we solve this?
We can borrow a strategy from a closely related area of affordable and fair housing initiatives. There are programs (c.f. AARP and the DownPayment Resource) in place for military veterans with disabilities and those with whom they live to be reimbursed for the cost of accessible accommodations.
Frankly, we need this for anyone with accessibility housing needs because discrimination based on “disability” continues to be the number one reported and violated protected class year after year.
For smaller, perhaps “mom and pop” landlords and condo/townhouse HOAs (both of which I have personally been part), if the cost burden is their (our) sole responsibility, that may place an undue financial burden on them (us).
For instance, if a service animal damages flooring to the point of replacement, it would be great if HUD had a reimbursement system.
For example, if the emotional support animals have “run out” of other residents, HUD should be able to provide a financial umbrella.
As a fair housing DECODER, I teach in continuing education classes that it is important for us to emphasize more “carrot cake” activities (positively incentivizing fair housing proactiveness) and not simply the “stick” approach (punishing unfair housing with fines and perhaps even jail time like recently in California). Surely, there is a place for correction, penalties, and restitution when laws are broken but there is more buy-in when we emphasize the “carrot cake” motivation theory. (Sidebar: I know this theory is based on horses, and they like plain carrots, but as humans, give me carrot cake, please, ha!)
If some of HUD’s (as well as state and local housing agencies’) budget could be redirected for accessibility accommodations and reimbursement (i.e., “carrot cake” motivation), there would probably be less unfair housing (and apathy towards fair housing).
Or, at the least, those who continued to insist on violating fair housing would more readily stand out for some intentional unfairness (instead of financial hardship causing arbitrary unfairness). Correcting disparate impacts is vital. But like other areas of law, a lack of mens rea should determine how corrections are made in unfair housing situations.
Dr. Lee Davenport is an international real estate educator.
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