How
Fair Housing Rights Can Help Your Clients/Consumers!
did you attend this workshop? give us your comments here!
The
Fairfield County Housing Coalition
Annual
Housing Conference 11/27/12 8AM-3
PM Liberty Center 951 Liberty Drive, Lancaster, Ohio
Agenda Overview of Fair Housing General Rule for RA/RM requests Recognizing discrimination in practice Framing an RA/RM request Building a Housing Rights Practice
Evaluation Comments
More on affordable housing
Don't joke about Altzheimer's. It is not a "funny" disease.
More resources to send clients for FH issues.
Anything related to more housing assistance.
How to network information among agencies.
Group discussion of housing barriers from the point of view of direct service providers.
future training: more on landlord tenants rights and duties.
Be consistent-do all powerpoint or none.
Cite regulations in handouts.
Have tenants attend
Learn more about specific housing available in our area.
Have the honchos present. Understanding HUD rules-how to prevent at risk individuals from losing voucher and becoming homeless.
What happened? 58 participants attended the training on November 30, 2012 which consisted of an AM session by Spencer Wells and Emily VanBuren of COHHIO and PM session presented by Jonda Clemings of COHHIO.
Questions and Discussion Can an organization provide a list of affordable units without creating a fair housing liability? YES! as long as your list is provided to all homeseekers, you should be OK. However, if you receive reports about possible discrimination by a housing provider who is on the list, you may want to investigate and/or suspend that provider until the questions are resolved. How can housing and service providers protect themselves against unsupported claims for support animals? ASK SOME QUESTIONS. You shouldn't be intrusive but you can ask for documentation of the connection between the disability and the request. How to handle denials based on credit and background? Wells says "peel the onion" by trying to have the housing provider specify what about the credit or background is problemmatic. Just asking questions will give clues about what factors are reasonable, what factors may be remediated by the applicant. What about limits on family size? HUD rule is 2 people/bedroom. sometimes defining a 'bedroom' may mean looking at the local code. People with disabilities just take advantage of special treatment. One finds out and then they all ask for accommodations. The fact that people learn they have rights is good. Each RA/RM must be treated on it's own merits-need to show a real disability and nexus and accommodation must be reasonable.
Follow up mailing HOPA regs Flyer for upcoming landlord, tenant training. HUD guidance on service animals. Links to home search tools.
