How does disability discrimination affect access to housing?
disability discrimination affect access to housing
When it comes to accessing housing, many people with disabilities face difficulties. These could include lack of easy access to the property, issues with safe maneuvering inside the home, or direct discrimination from landlords who refuse to allow reasonable accommodations and modifications. Disability discrimination is illegal in the United States and can have serious consequences for those affected.
The Equality Act includes laws against both direct and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination is when someone is treated less favourably because of their disability, while indirect discrimination happens when a rule, policy or practice seems to treat everyone the same but actually puts disabled people at an unfair disadvantage. For example, if a local authority produces an information leaflet that’s written in difficult-to-read English and doesn’t produce an easy-to-read version because of cost, this could amount to indirect discrimination against disabled people who don’t have the same language skills.
A major goal of disability discrimination activists is to realize what Cameron calls the “civil right” for disabled people to live in the community, not be kept unnecessarily in institutions like nursing homes. But that cannot be realized unless there is adequate, affordable, accessible housing in the community for disabled people to move into.
How does disability discrimination affect access to housing?
According to a recent report from the National Fair Housing Alliance, discrimination in housing based on disability occurs at twice the rate of discrimination based on race, familial status and sex and is the leading cause of fair housing complaints. The report found that landlords have been known to refuse to rent to people with disabilities, not provide accessibility features or make other reasonable accommodations and modifications, discourage people from applying to a particular apartment, make the apartments unavailable, steer them towards different housing and more.
Discrimination against people with disability claim lawyer also affects housing that receives federal assistance. This includes the largely older stock of federally assisted housing for households with the lowest incomes and some multifamily rental housing built with Section 8 voucher funding. Under the ADA, these landlords must allow tenants to make reasonable structural modifications to their units and public/common areas. In addition, the ADA requires that federally assisted housing providers accommodate disabilities of their residents to the extent that they do not pose an undue financial or administrative burden.
Other forms of housing discrimination involve discrimination by state and local land use and zoning regulations that unnecessarily limit the residential choices of individuals with disabilities, such as group homes, and laws, policies and practices that exclude disabled individuals from living in multifamily rental housing that has been designed and built to comply with the requirements of the Fair Housing Act and the ADA.
Individuals who have been subjected to any form of disability discrimination should contact a New York City disability claim lawyer as soon as possible. A seasoned attorney could help them file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or another federal agency, as well as seek compensation for their damages.
