The purpose of this toolkit is to offer you with the tools necessary to acknowledge the barriers that might prevent you from the full use and pleasure of your home and what you can do to remove them.

The federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) needs residential or commercial property owners to permit reasonable modifications and sensible lodgings to individuals with specials needs so that they can have complete usage and satisfaction of the residential or commercial property where they live. The ease of access laws under the FHA ensure that, either through structural modifications to the structure (generally referred to as "reasonable adjustments") or modifications in rules and policies (normally referred to as "affordable accommodations"), people with specials needs have equivalent access to and enjoyment of their homes as do non-disabled individuals.

If you are a person with an impairment, you have the legal right to obtain an adjustment or accommodation to your home, if it is a reasonable request and it is essential to afford you access to and equal enjoyment of the residential or commercial property. This demand can be made prior to moving into the system or any time during your occupancy. This toolkit is created to assist you assert your civil rights and request a reasonable modification or an affordable accommodation from your housing supplier.

This toolkit includes:

- Information about your legal rights.
- Steps that will help you ask for a sensible modification or accommodation.
- Templates for writing a request for a sensible modification/accommodation.
- How and where to turn for assistance.

Fair Housing for People with Disabilities

Everyone has a right to reasonable housing. The ability to live where one chooses with self-respect and without fear of discrimination is a standard right ensured to all individuals. The Fairfax County Office of Human Rights and Equity Programs (OHREP) implements the Fairfax County Human Rights Ordinance and the Fairfax County Fair Housing Act, which forbid discrimination in housing. If you are a person with an impairment, you can equivalent access to housing, consisting of complete enjoyment of your housing. If you think that you, or somebody you understand, have experienced housing discrimination in Fairfax County, you deserve to submit a fair housing complaint with OHREP, but you should do so within 365 days from the date the alleged prejudiced act occurred, or in the case of a continuing violation, from the date the supposed discriminatory act ended.

What is a Disability?

The federal Fair Housing Act defines an impairment to include a physical or psychological disability that substantially restricts several significant life activities. Major life activities are central activities to life, such as seeing, hearing, walking, breathing, carrying out manual tasks, caring for oneself, and speaking. An impairment can include a hearing, visual, or mobility problems; a medical condition; or an emotional disease.

The Right to Fair Housing

Federal, state, and regional laws all forbid housing discrimination against people with impairments. In specific, the federal Fair Housing Act forbids discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, faith, nationwide origin, sex, disability, and familial status. In addition, the Fairfax County Fair Housing Act forbids housing discrimination on the basis of elderliness (age 55 and older), marital status, source of funds, sexual preference, gender identity, and status as a veteran. Under both the federal Fair Housing Act and the Fairfax County Fair Housing Act, people with impairments are entitled to delight in the very same housing chances as other citizens. For example, housing providers may not:

- Refuse to lease, sell, or negotiate housing.
- Set various terms, conditions, or benefits for sale or leasing of a dwelling.
- Falsely deny that housing is offered for inspection, sale, or rental.
- Discourage an individual from looking for housing in a particular community.
- Deny access to or subscription in a center or service associated to the sale of housing.
- Refuse to enable an affordable accommodation or sensible adjustment (explained below).
- Threaten or hinder anyone making a fair housing problem.
- Harass an occupant or housing candidate.
- Take any other action to otherwise make housing not available.

Reasonable Accommodations and Modifications

People with impairments are entitled to affordable lodgings and affordable modifications that are needed for them to take pleasure in full usage of a residence.

- A reasonable lodging is a change in a rule, policy, practice, or service in order to offer an individual with a disability equal choice and opportunity. Examples consist of appointing an available parking area to somebody with a movement disability or permitting a service animal in a "no family pets" building. In addition, a housing provider can not need an animal cost for a service animal.

- A reasonable modification is a structural change that manages an individual with a special needs complete usage and enjoyment of the facility. Examples consist of setting up a ramp to an entrance door, widening entrances, decreasing countertops, and installing grab bars. Who pays? It depends. If the residential or commercial property is covered under new structure availability requirements, the housing company may be liable for any affordable adjustment expenses incurred. If the residential or commercial property is not covered, the local might be accountable for associated costs.

Fair Housing Accessibility Requirements

Apartments and other multifamily housing initially inhabited after March 13, 1991, need to likewise satisfy particular standard levels of ease of access. The availability requirements apply to all units in structures with 4 or more units that have an elevator. If a structure with four or more units has no elevator and was first occupied after March 13, 1991, these requirements use to ground flooring systems just.

What Can a Housing Provider Ask?

Housing companies may ask into a candidate's capability to fulfill tenancy requirements. This indicates that a property owner might ask whether you have sufficient earnings to be able to pay the lease, whether you are prepared to abide by the needed rules (unless a reasonable lodging is made), and other concerns relating straight to occupancy. A housing company may likewise embrace and apply uniform, unbiased, and nondiscriminatory requirements created to evaluate a prospective tenant's credit value, such as needing credit or criminal background checks.

If you have an impairment, you can not be dealt with in a different way just because you are an individual with an impairment, nor can you have your housing option restricted since of an impairment. Reasonable accommodations and affordable adjustments need to be just that-reasonable. When an individual makes an affordable lodging or adjustment request, a proprietor has the right to examine the relationship in between the demand being made and the impairment. However, the individual making the request remains entitled to privacy.

Even when a person makes an ask for an affordable lodging or adjustment, the landlord is just entitled to understand that a disability exists which the request is associated to that impairment. The private making the request is not needed to share the nature and complete degree of the disability.

Questions like "Can you walk at all?"; "How did you lose your leg?"; or "The length of time have you needed to utilize that wheelchair?" are all unlawful. A property owner can not speak with other occupants in the structure about your impairment. Your impairment is no one's organization however your own.