It's a ZOO Out There: Managing Assistive Animal Requests

Overview:

On January 28, 2020, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)  Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) released Notice FHEO-2020-01, sometimes referred to as the “Assistance Animals Notice.” The Notice includes two attachments. The first, “Assessing a Person’s Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act,” recommends a set of best practices for complying with the Fair Housing Act (FHA) when assessing a person with a disability’s accommodation requests involving animals in housing.

Since then, lots of confusion still exists about what we, as industry professionals, can and can’t do and say - resulting in lots of complaints and legal actions. In addition, the proliferation of internet-based assistance animal credential sites often makes identifying and verifying authentic assistance animals a very messy process!

This session will review the requirements for compliance with the FHA requirements for evaluating requests for reasonable accommodations involving animals, including who is eligible, definitions of the important terms and phrases you’ll encounter, how to assess the request and the fine points of approving and denying requests.

Why you should Attend:

• Learn the difference between assistive animals and pets
• Learn what kind of accommodations we may need to approve
• Learn how to differentiate between a service animal and a support animal
• Learn what questions and inquiries may be made regarding the disability and the animal
• Learn what types of verification and documentation may be required by the manager/owner
• Learn what animals may and may not be allowed as service and/or support animals

Areas Covered in the Session:

• New definitions
• Types of accommodations
• Managing and assessing  the request
• Assistive Animals
• Disabilities
• The Nexus
• Documentation & Verification
• Summary of Best Practices

Who Will Benefit:

• On-site and multi-site Property Managers; Marketing and Leasing Directors and Training and Development Professionals