New Fair Housing Planning Toolkit Now Available

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HUD has launched its Assistance Animals and Fair Housing –  Navigating Reasonable Accommodations Interactive Tool.  

The tool allows users to click through a series of questions which guide users through HUD’s January 2020 Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Notice 2020-01.  In that Notice, HUD set forth guidance on housing providers’ obligations under the Fair Housing Act to provide reasonable accommodations to housing consumers with disabilities who require the use of an assistance animal.  Now, housing providers and consumers alike may use the tool to ensure compliance with the Fair Housing Act’s requirements related to reasonable accommodations for assistance animals.  Some of the information which can be obtained from the tool includes the following:

• The definition of an assistance animal;
• The rules and polices that are enforceable against assistance animals versus pets;
• Circumstances in which the Fair Housing Act requires a provider to accommodate a reasonable request;
• The extent of a housing providers’ ability to make document or information requests to consumers, including best practices for this “interactive process”; and 
• The scope of information consumers must provide in response to a provider’s request for information or documents.