HUD Issues Guidance on Assistance Animals and Fair Housing Act
By PVA National Staff
On January 28, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 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 when assessing a person with a disability’s accommodation requests involving animals in housing.
The second attachment is “Guidance on Documenting an Individual’s Need for Assistance Animals in Housing.” It provides guidance on information that an individual seeking a reasonable accommodation for an assistance animal may need to provide to a housing provider about his or her disability-related need for the requested accommodation, including supporting information from a health care professional.
The contents of the Assistance Animal Notice do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way. The documents are intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies.