Human Rights And Equity Programs
The purpose of this toolkit is to provide you with the tools required to acknowledge the barriers that might prevent you from the full usage and satisfaction of your home and what you can do to eliminate them.
The federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) requires residential or commercial property owners to enable affordable adjustments and reasonable accommodations to individuals with specials needs so that they can have full usage and pleasure of the residential or commercial property where they reside. The accessibility laws under the FHA ensure that, either through structural changes to the structure (generally described as "sensible modifications") or modifications in rules and policies (typically referred to as "affordable accommodations"), people with specials needs have equal access to and pleasure of their homes as do non-disabled persons.
If you are a person with an impairment, you have the legal right to acquire a modification or accommodation to your house, if it is a reasonable demand and it is essential to afford you access to and equal pleasure of the residential or commercial property. This request can be made prior to moving into the system or any time throughout your occupancy. This toolkit is created to assist you assert your civil liberties and request a reasonable modification or a reasonable accommodation from your housing provider.
This toolkit consists of:
- Information about your legal rights.
- Steps that will help you ask for an affordable modification or accommodation.
- Templates for writing a request for an affordable modification/accommodation.
- How and where to turn for help.
Fair Housing for People with Disabilities
Everyone has a right to reasonable housing. The ability to live where one selects with dignity and without fear of discrimination is a standard right guaranteed to all people. The Fairfax County Office of Human Rights and Equity Programs (OHREP) enforces the Fairfax County Human Rights Ordinance and the Fairfax County Fair Housing Act, which prohibit discrimination in housing. If you are an individual with a special needs, you have the right to equivalent access to housing, consisting of full enjoyment of your housing. If you believe that you, or someone you understand, have actually experienced housing discrimination in Fairfax County, you deserve to submit a fair housing complaint with OHREP, but you must do so within 365 days from the date the supposed inequitable act took place, or when it comes to a continuing violation, from the date the supposed prejudiced act ended.
What is a Disability?
The federal Fair Housing Act specifies a disability to consist of a physical or psychological impairment that considerably limits several significant life activities. Major life activities are central activities to day-to-day life, such as seeing, hearing, walking, breathing, carrying out manual tasks, looking after oneself, and speaking. A special needs can include a hearing, visual, or movement impairment; a medical condition; or an emotional illness.
The Right to Fair Housing
Federal, state, and regional laws all forbid housing discrimination versus individuals with disabilities. In specific, the federal Fair Housing Act forbids discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, religion, nationwide origin, sex, special needs, and familial status. In addition, the Fairfax County Fair Housing Act restricts housing discrimination on the basis of elderliness (age 55 and older), marital status, source of funds, sexual orientation, gender identity, and status as a veteran. Under both the federal Fair Housing Act and the Fairfax County Fair Housing Act, individuals with impairments are entitled to delight in the exact same housing chances as other locals. For instance, housing providers may not:
- Refuse to lease, sell, or negotiate housing. - Set different terms, conditions, or benefits for sale or leasing of a dwelling. - Falsely deny that housing is available for inspection, sale, or rental.
- Discourage an individual from looking for housing in a specific community.
- Deny access to or membership in a facility or service associated to the sale of housing.
- Refuse to enable a reasonable lodging or reasonable modification (discussed listed below).
- Threaten or hinder anybody making a reasonable housing grievance. - Harass an occupant or housing candidate.
- Take any other action to otherwise make housing not available.
Reasonable Accommodations and Modifications
People with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations and reasonable modifications that are required for them to take pleasure in full usage of a home.
- An affordable accommodation is a modification in a rule, policy, practice, or service in order to provide a person with a disability equivalent option and opportunity. Examples consist of designating an accessible parking area to somebody with a movement impairment or enabling a service animal in a "no pets" structure. In addition, a housing service provider can not require a pet fee for a service animal.
- An affordable modification is a structural change that affords a person with a disability complete use and pleasure of the facility. Examples consist of setting up a ramp to an entryway door, expanding doorways, decreasing counter tops, and installing grab bars. Who pays? It depends. If the residential or commercial property is covered under brand-new structure availability requirements, the housing provider may be liable for any reasonable adjustment costs sustained. If the residential or commercial property is not covered, the citizen might be accountable for associated expenses.
Fair Housing Accessibility Requirements
Apartments and other multifamily housing first inhabited after March 13, 1991, should also meet specific basic levels of availability. The ease of access requirements use to all units in structures with four or more units that have an elevator. If a structure with 4 or more systems has no elevator and was first occupied after March 13, 1991, these standards apply to ground floor units only.
What Can a Housing Provider Ask?
Housing service providers may ask into a candidate's ability to fulfill occupancy requirements. This indicates that a proprietor may ask whether you have sufficient income to be able to pay the rent, whether you are ready to comply with the needed rules (unless a reasonable accommodation is made), and other questions relating directly to occupancy. A housing supplier might also embrace and apply consistent, unbiased, and nondiscriminatory requirements developed to assess a potential occupant's credit merit, such as requiring credit or criminal background checks.
If you have a special needs, you can not be treated in a different way just since you are a person with a disability, nor can you have your housing option minimal because of a special needs. Reasonable lodgings and reasonable adjustments need to be simply that-reasonable. When an individual makes an affordable accommodation or adjustment demand, a property owner deserves to examine the relationship between the request being made and the disability. However, the individual making the request remains entitled to personal privacy.
Even when a person makes an ask for a reasonable accommodation or modification, the landlord is just entitled to know that an impairment exists which the request is related to that impairment. The specific making the demand is not required to share the nature and complete level of the disability.
Questions like "Can you walk at all?"; "How did you lose your leg?"; or "For how long have you had to use that wheelchair?" are all illegal. A property owner can not speak with other tenants in the building about your . Your special needs is nobody's service however your own.