On February 6, HUD announced new tools to help housing stakeholders navigate Fair Housing policies related to assistance animals. Under the Fair Housing Act, housing residents or applicants can request reasonable accommodations, including the ability to have an assistance animal in their homes.

HUD’s new tools act as an explanation of a guidance document issued by HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO-2020-01), which provides a set of best practices for complying with the Fair Housing Act when assessing requests for reasonable accommodations for assistance animals.

HUD’s newly-published tools include:

• Interactive Tool for housing providers receiving a request for reasonable accommodations related to an assistance animal, and for housing residents or applicants requesting the reasonable accommodation
• Webinar on assistance animals and fair housing, with insight from key HUD staff
• Fact sheet on navigating reasonable accommodations, including an overview of different types of assistance animals, protections under the law, and the rationale for approving or denying a request for a reasonable accommodation

More information is available here.