Federal Retreat, California Resolve: Emotional Support Animals After HUD’s Policy Reversal

Welcome to the webinar Federal Retreat California Resolve; Emotional Support Animals After HUD’s Policy Reversal.

My name is Michele Uzeta. I’m the Executive Director of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in Berkeley, California. And with me today is Kara Brodfuehrer from the California Civil Rights Department. And we will be sharing time today to give an overview of HUD’s May 22nd memo, Enforcement Guidance on Assistance animals, and to also talk a little bit about California law and the remedies that are still available to folks.

So, those of you not familiar with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, or we’re also known as DREDF, we are a national, cross disability Law and Policy Center, founded in 1979 as a unique alliance of disabled adults and parents of children with disabilities who were leaders in the disability rights and independent living movements.

Our mission is to advance and defend the civil and human rights of people with disabilities through legal advocacy, training, education, and public policy. We focus our work on issues in which disability, poverty, race, ethnicity, gender, immigration status, and LGBTQ plus status intersect and operates in our consistent with core principles of equality of opportunity, disability, accommodation, accessibility and inclusion.

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The California Civil Rights Department is a State Department who is charged with protecting the people of California from unlawful discrimination and employment, housing and public accommodations, and from hate, violence, and human trafficking. Next slide please.

And the Civil Rights Department has a disclaimer that I need to read, which is that this guidance is for informational purposes only, does not establish substantive policy or rights, and does not constitute legal advice. This information is based on the most recent guidance as of the date of this training.

It is the responsibility of the attendee to be aware of changing guidance and laws, and the opinions expressed by other presenters, meaning me, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Kara or CRT.

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So, today’s topics and learning outcomes. First, we’ll just do a brief level setting so people understand the difference between service animals and emotional support animals or ESAs. We’ll be explaining HUD’s May 22nd, 2026 memo and its impact, and then talking a little bit about the remedies that still remain for assistance animal users. I believe the chat is turned off, but the Q&A is open.

If people have questions, please post them there. I won’t be stopping the presentation to answer questions, but we’ll try to answer them while Kara is speaking or even after, if we have time left for Q&A. Next slide please.

First, to talk about obligations under the Fair Housing Act. The federal Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful for a housing provider to refuse to make changes to policies, practices or procedures that a person with a disability may need to have equal opportunity to enjoy or use their dwelling, which means their unit or common areas, and this is commonly referred to as ‘the right to reasonable accommodation.’

One common request that housing providers receive is for the reasonable accommodation of being allowed to live with an assistance animal, and for providers to waive ‘no pet’ or ‘no animal’ policies so that folks can reside with their assistance animals. And at the bottom of that slide, there is the legal citations for that reasonable accommodation. Right. Next slide please.

The Federal Fair Housing Act defines an assistance animal, at least prior to HUD’s memo, as an animal that works, provides assistance or performs tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, and that is also referred to as a ‘service animal.’ Or an animal that provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified effects of a person’s disability, and that is commonly referred to as an ‘emotional support animal’ or an ‘ESA.’

And the Fair Housing Act, again before this HUD memo, did not limit assistance animals to dogs. They could be cats. They could be birds. They could be other types of common domestic animals. Next slide please.

An important note is that the Fair Housing Act definition of assistance animals has lived entirely in sub regulatory guidance. So, the definition is not found anywhere in the Fair Housing Act statute. It’s not found anywhere in Fair Housing Act regulations. Prior operative documents that detailed the rights that people had around assistance animals, including service animals and ESAs, were the 2013 notice from the HUD Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, or FHEO, and also the January 28th, 2020 notice.
Both of these notices were rescinded in September 2025. And then, as I’ll mention later, they were completely canceled by this May 22nd HUD memo. And these two guidance memos really did make clear to housing providers and tenants both that ESAs qualified as assistance animals that must be accommodated under the Fair Housing Act, that ESAs need not be trained, certified or registered, that ESAs need not be dogs, and that because ESAs are not pets, that housing providers may not charge pet fees, deposits or pet rent that may be applicable to other people with animals.

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And now turning to obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And this will become relevant shortly. Since March 15th of 2011, the Department of Justice regulations under the ADA recognize only dogs as service animals. And this is true under title two and three of the ADA. And those two titles are the titles that prohibit discrimination in public services and places of public accommodations like restaurants, hotels, and the like.

So under the ADA, service animals are defined as dogs individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. There is a small carve out for miniature horses, but otherwise it’s really only dogs that are recognized as service animals under the ADA and emotional support animals are not recognized under the ADA as having any access rights whatsoever.

So, if somebody has an ESA and is trying to go to a restaurant for dinner, there is no right under the ADA to be accompanied by your ESA. If you use a service animal, however, under the ADA you are permitted to go into a restaurant with that service animal.

Before we go into what did I do want to say that HUD deliberately used the umbrella term ‘assistance animal’ rather than ‘service animal,’ ‘support animal,’ ‘ESA’ to try to avoid confusion with the revised ADA regulations that really restricted that definition of service animal, and to make clear what obligations attach under the Fair Housing Act. So, there was no previous to this action. In May, HUD really did want to distinguish the Fair Housing Act from the ADA and recognize emotional support animals.

Okay. So, what did HUD do? Well, on May 22nd, 2026, they issued an enforcement guidance memo that did a number of things. It announced that HUD’s enforcement shift was going to be away from housing discrimination cases concerning emotional support animals. So, they were no longer going to be focusing on these as discrimination cases they would investigate. They also announced an intent to pursue only cases involving animals that are trained to provide disability-related assistance.

Now, if you recall prior to this memo, ESAs required no training. It’s widely recognized that ESAs are there to provide support – emotional support – and that does not require training. That’s something that animals uniquely kind of do, just as a matter of course. The third thing that the enforcement guidance memo does is make permanent the September 2025 rescission of HUD’s prior guidance from 2013 and 2020 that discuss assistance animals, including ESAs as reasonable accommodations under the Fair Housing Act.

Specific changes made were that HUD has now adopted the ADA’s trained service animal standard for animals that will recognize as assistance animals. It removes a presumption favoring untrained ESAs that previously existed. It freezes all of the open emotional support animal cases that are pending with HUD for individual review under the new standard, and it also signals that HUD is planning on doing some additional future rulemaking, which can’t possibly be favorable, but it gives no timeline for when that rulemaking will happen.

So, let’s go dig a little deeper on each of these changes. Next slide.

So, change one. It adopts the ADA standard. So, now HUD will only recognize animals as assistance animals if they are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, including physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disabilities. So, this means for HUD to recognize your animal as an assistance animal, it has to do something like pick up items for you, or help you transfer from a wheelchair to your bed, going into a room to turn on lights. Something like that. Signaling that an alarm is happening. Any type of those tasks that a dog or other animal can be trained to do, that’s going to be required for HUD to even recognize that this is an assistance animal. Comfort or companionship, which was previously recognized as something making an animal and assistance animal under the Fair Housing Act, now, that alone does not equal work or task.

Interestingly, non-dog species can still count as assistance animals, but only if they are individually trained to do work or a task. I don’t know how somebody is going to train a bird or a cat – because cats just do whatever the heck they want – to do work or tasks. But that’s a really hard – It’s a high bar for people.

So, in theory, this change – adopting the ADA standard – effectively just eliminates the whole concept of an ESA from federal enforcement. That’s the impact that it has.

Changes two and three. The presumption is gone and cases are frozen. So, the presumption favoring untrained emotional supports animals is now effectively gone under the old framework – under those prior kind of guidance materials.

A landlord who refused to waive a no pets policy for someone with a legitimate ESA was presumed to be violating the Fair Housing Act. That presumption now does not apply. Landlords are no longer expected to automatically grant requests from disabled tenants with untrained emotional support animals. And this effectively shifts risk to tenants. Open complaints regarding ESAs will be sent for individual review under the new standard.

I’m assuming that those requests are or those complaints will now be no caused and they will be closed without any action, which will leave a lot of people in the lurch who thought their rights were going to be enforced. And cases that are near a discrimination finding with HUD will likely be immediately closed without a discrimination finding.

And then change for about future rulemaking. So, HUD did say in the memo that it will update its 1989 regulations to match the ADA regulations. To do that, that means they have to provide public notice. They have to provide a comment period and a final rule, and there’s a whole process for that to take place. Speaking on behalf of DREDF, once we get public notice of rulemaking, we absolutely will be mobilizing people to submit comments because again, this can’t possibly be good under this administration. It will likely be something that further restricts the rights of people with disabilities to live with assistance animals in their housing. And we will definitely want to submit comments on that kind of a change. No timeline has been given. The process will likely invite legal challenge of some sort, which folks will talk about when that happens. And until a final rule is issued, the current regulations stand.

So, the regulations that say that people with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodation in their housing, those stand.

So, what has changed for you as a tenant or for your clients as tenants? A HUD complaint is no longer meaningful for a person using an untrained emotional support animal. Only trained animals will be entitled to federal enforcement. HUD will close cases without finding a violation, and this will serve as a major deterrent against ESA denials and pet fees has been removed, so landlords will now feel emboldened to discriminate against people who use emotional support animals.

They’ll feel free to impose pet fees because they know that there’s no federal enforcement. But, luckily, we have California enforcement, which Kara will talk about in just a couple of minutes. Next slide.

It is important to understand what individually trained means. That means that the animal is trained to do a task directly related to your disability. Again, general comfort companionship does not count, but there is no requirement that the trainer be a professional trainer or certified trainer, or that you get some sort of certificate to prove that your animal has been trained.

Owner training is still enough. And at least in California, in the ninth circuit, we have good case law about recognizing that animals can be trained by their handlers to do tasks for their disability, so this doesn’t change that area of the law. You don’t need to have a professional certified trainer to show that your animal is individually trained.

I will note on the issue of pet fees, the HUD memo, and I’ll put a link of it in the chat if somebody hasn’t already. Under the old FHA guidance. Landlords could not charge pet fees for assistance animals, including ESAs. So this May 22nd HUD memo attached a case called Henderson Versus Five Properties, LLC. In that case it was a case that refused – where a refusal by a landlord to waive a pet fee was found not to be automatically illegal.

So why does this matter? It kind of signals to us that HUD believes at this time that charging ESA fees may not be discriminatory. So, federal consequences for charging ESA fees are now probably less likely. Legality will still depend on your particular facts and your state laws, especially if you live in a state like California that has strong state laws about the right to reside with assistance animals, including ESAs.

Folks have had questions about letters that they’ve had regarding their need for an emotional support and animal or existing approvals from landlords where they’re currently living, and rightfully so, to be a little frightened about this. We would just say a treating providers letter is still meaningful evidence of your need for an accommodation in housing. So, it’s still a useful piece of evidence to have.

HUD just won’t use it to pursue a complaint if you filed one with HUD regarding discrimination based on your use of an ESA that is not individually trained. Courts and state agencies will still way that kind of documentation should you go that route to enforce your rights. And if you’re already approved as a tenant with an ESA, that approval really should stand.

The bigger risk is for people who are moving, people who are making a new request, or the occasional landlords who are really emboldened by things like this that happen – changes by the administration – who might go out and then affirmatively try to evict or charge existing tenants with fees. But we’re hoping that those are going to be far and few between.

What remains; rights and remedies.

It’s important to remember what did not change as a result of this memo. The Fair Housing Act is still law. Its text has not changed. Its regulations have not changed. This, again, is just an enforcement guidance memo that applies to HUD. Your right to sue in court for failure to provide you with reasonable accommodations based on your use of an assistance animal remains two years, and you can file in state or federal court.

Section 504 of the rehabilitation, which applies to federally funded housing providers, is unaffected, and you may have some stronger rights there. State and local fair housing laws are unaffected by this memo. So again, look to those to see what rights you have. And fair housing organizations can still investigate and sue for discrimination based on a failure to accommodate. But whether they can use federal funding to do so is an unanswered question at this point.

if your landlord says no, don’t panic. A HUD complaint was never your only path to enforce your rights. Put everything in writing. Keep copies of everything. Good self-advocacy tip! Contact a fair housing organization or a disability rights organization.

These are often free. In California, you can file with the Civil Rights Department or consult a disability rights organization, fair housing organization, or a private civil rights attorney or fair housing attorney. Don’t sign away your rights or agree to pet fees under pressure. Consult with someone first. Next slide please.

And here’s our contact information. We will send out the slides after the training. So, if you are not connected with DREDF right now and you are very interested in this issue, please connect with us on our social media. And we will make sure to get you information as it happens. Next slide. Okay. Passing it to Kara.

Excited to be here to chat with you. I’m going to give you a disclaimer that I am recovering from a cold. And I am hoping really, really hard that that will not be impacted. But bear with me if it does. But I’m here from the California Civil Rights Department. As Michelle said, we’re the state agency that takes complaints in California involving housing discrimination.

So ,we have a similar function to HUD in that if you think that you’ve been discriminated against based on your disability or other protected characteristics, you can file a complaint with us. And so, we do have an agreement with HUD where, if HUD receives complaints involving the laws that we enforce, they will send them to us. And if we get complaints involving the laws they enforce, we share that information with them.

But the main thing to note is, if you live in California, will HUD’s new guidance impact you? And the answer globally is no. You will still have a right to file a complaint with us. And, you know, California, just generally, we’ve always had stronger housing discrimination protections. Nothing has changed. I mean, Michelle already reiterated this, but the law -federal law has not changed either.

It’s just how HUD is going to do things. But, you know, we in California have strong protections for renters with disabilities. And the main takeaway I would take is if you live in California, refusing to allow reasonable accommodation for an untrained service animal is still a violation of California law. And if you’re denied the right to a reasonable accommodation involving your emotional support animal, trained or untrained, you can file with us.

So, next slide.

And I’m just going to kind of highlight how things work because I think people are confused. They’re like okay. But things might be changing on the federal law. So, how can the state law still be around? So, if you want to just go through to the end of the slide. Yeah. So, the federal law basically sets the floor of legal protections.

You can press one more. And so, when states don’t have a similar law, the federal law applies. But for California, for example our laws include protections for everybody in housing and for housing discrimination that are protected under federal law. But California is also allowed, as a state, to have even stronger protections. So, for example, in California, we have housing discrimination protections for people that are undocumented.

And that doesn’t exist in the federal law. But California is allowed to have those protections and even locally, some local laws. Some cities, some counties have laws that are even stronger and recognize other protected characteristics that the state doesn’t recognize. So, for example, in Los Angeles, you can’t be discriminated against based on your employment status. And that’s not a protected characteristic in federal law or state law.

So, next slide.

So, this is just kind of to hammer home that. So, here are the protected characteristics under federal law. And note that they include disability. And then go ahead and we go to California law. And so, California law, all the ones in red include additional protected characteristics that we have in California. So, just to show that California laws there, they are more protective. And they’re allowed to be more protective.

So, let’s just talk through some of this. So, California law is clear that housing providers must allow untrained emotional support animals if there’s a disability related need for one. So, that has not changed. You know housing providers may or may not know they can have rules regarding pets and prohibiting certain types of pets. But if somebody needs a reasonable accommodation and a need for an emotional support animal, a housing provider must allow that person to have an animal as a reasonable accommodation unless they can show that an exception applies.

So, next slide. So, one in California housing provider asked me for proof of my need for an untrained ESA.

Yes. And go ahead and forward it again.

But housing providers can’t ask for proof of your need for a reasonable accommodation, including one for an emotional support animal, but they can only ask for enough information to document the disability related reason why it’s necessary. You don’t have to give a diagnosis. You don’t have to give medical records. It’s just enough information to document. And if your disability is obvious, then they shouldn’t be asking for that proof at all.

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So, what about the documentation of the need for an ESA? Does it have to come from a licensed medical professional? Next.

The answer is no. So, in California, documentation can come from any reliable third party who’s in a position to know about someone’s disability or their need for an emotional support animal. And then you can go ahead and forward the rest of the slide. This could be a therapist. Yeah. There you go. Social worker. You know, it can be a medical professional.

I’ll say, in my experience, doctors are usually not the best people to provide documentation because they’re not seeing people on a regular basis in the way that a therapist is, or a service provider is, or a parent or a caregiver would also a person’s own statement of why they need the accommodation can also provide documentation. Next slide.

When it comes to California law, can a provider charge a fee or rent to have an ESA?

So, housing providers can’t charge someone a pet deposit, pet rent or any other fee or rent because of the emotional support animal. This is even true if you say they charge other tenants fees, deposits, or rent. So, for example, if you live in a building where they charge pet rent and you have an accommodation for an ESA, they shouldn’t be charging for pet rent.

And that case that HUD is using kind of involves something like that, but it should not impact California law. In addition, housing providers can’t require somebody with an ESA to to get something like liability insurance to cover any animal. But, you know, you should note that if your support animal or emotional support animal does any type of damage to your unit, that’s beyond just like normal wear and tear, you wouldn’t be responsible to pay for that. Next slide.

All right. What about emotional support animal registries. We see these a lot online where if you Google ‘emotional support animal’ you’re going to come up with lots of different websites that are going to say ‘we’ll add you the registry, we’ll send you a card’. What is this all about. So, next part.

No, an animal does not have to be registered. There actually is no registry to my knowledge. At least in California, there is no requirement for a registration or certification for an animal to serve as an ESA. Next part. There’s a lot of businesses that say they will do this. And position is that they’re charging for an unnecessary service. You know, places that give you a card, register your animal, give you a vest. You can have that stuff, but it’s not necessary under the law. Next slide.

So, housing providers can, under some circumstances, deny a request for an accommodation for an emotional support animal. There’s only a few exceptions or reasons why they can do this.

One, if it’s going to be way too expensive, which under most circumstances, I can’t imagine that this would be the case. You know, it would have to be so out-of-pocket expensive for the housing provider to allow that. It would just be impossible. Another would be if you’re asking for a housing provider to do something that’s just way outside of what they normally do.

So, say you live in an apartment building, and you have a small courtyard, and you want to have an emotional support horse. And you would like that animal to live in that courtyard. And for them to kind of build out something for that animal to live in your courtyard would really be asking for way more than what a housing provider would normally do.

And under those circumstances, for example, it could probably – it would likely be denied and lawfully denied. And the one that we see the most is if an animal constitutes a direct threat to health or safety, or that would cause substantial damage, and only if that harm can’t be reduced or eliminated by another accommodation. So, let’s talk more about that.

So, can someone have more than one emotional support animal? The answer is yes.

But it’s just important to know. Housing providers can ask for documentation of why each animal is necessary. And they can consider the total impact of multiple animals if it’s going to be a health or safety issue. I had a client once who wanted six chickens in their studio apartment. And, you know, after a lot of discussion the housing provider determined that this was a very unreasonable and not a healthy or safe situation.

And so there was a compromise there. But, yeah, housing providers could consider that. Next slide.

Okay. So, this is what I was trying to get at before. So, when it comes to direct threat. So, if a housing provider is saying that ‘having an animal would be a threat to health or safety,’ you know, because of that, can they do things like limit the breed of an ESA, the size, the weight?

The answer is no. So, when it comes to ESAs and whether or not an animal is a direct threat to health or safety, it has to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. This means that it can’t be based on stereotypes. It’s that specific animal, their specific temperament. You know, I always tell people that the only dog that ever bit me was like a teeny tiny Chihuahua mix, you know, and every dog is different.

Many terriers are very sweet. Then you have pitbulls that are very sweet and or, you know, good ESAs. It just really depends on that specific animal. So, that’s why breed restriction, size – are not permitted when it comes to reasonable accommodations. Even if an insurance company has it written into their homeowner’s insurance policy saying things like, you know, ‘no bully breeds,’ for example. Even those insurance companies, they have to make exceptions for reasonable accommodations. Which means if your housing provider comes back to you and says, ‘hey, I want to allow you to have this ESA, but I can’t because my homeowner’s insurance said, no pitbulls,’ you can push back and say, ‘you know, they actually need to follow the law too’ and you know, you’re entitled to reasonable accommodation. They can’t have breed restrictions.

So, in California a couple of years ago there was this law called Assembly Bill 468. It confused a whole lot of people. A lot of people now think that if people are requesting emotional support animals, they have to get documentation from a medical provider. It’s just important to know and for going forward that this law does not impact any of the rights I’m talking about today.

You know, you can have any qualified third party or the person requesting themselves to provide that documentation. And we have guidance on our website about this. So, just to throw away on that.

So, yeah, that was the general information. So, you know the main takeaway is as far as California is concerned, the law still applies. Things have not changed. We have a lot of good guidance on our website. We’re about to update our emotional support animals and housing. And you’re going to get a copy of this presentation so you can check those out with that QR code.

And next slide.

And we do webinars three times a month. They’re free just letting folks know about that. And next slide.

And we also have YouTube videos on our YouTube channel including one on emotional support animals. And that’s it. If you want to just go the next slide. This is just general information. If you need to file a complaint with us, if you want to get in touch with us, this is how you can do that.

But yeah, I’m going to hand it back over to Michelle and happy to answer questions. I think we have a bunch.

Yeah, I’ve been going through trying to answer some of the questions. There’s a question asking for the legal citation on the issue that other people that are not necessarily medical providers can provide an ESA, letter like a parent. I think they’re asking about documentation and support of an accommodation request. Does it necessarily need to come from a medical provider? They’re asking, what is the legal authority for that?

It’s in our regulations, our fair. So, we in California have the Fair Employment and Housing Act, which protects people from housing discrimination in California. And we have regulations that basically talk about how the law applies and what situations. And there are regulations involving disability and emotional support animals. And those are specifically state that I don’t remember the exact code section off the top of my head, but I’m sure we could follow up with that. And all of those regulations are also available on our website. And they’re long. But I would say as far as the housing disability regulations are concerned, I think they’re written in a pretty accessible way, at least where there’s a lot of examples.

And so I can follow up on that. But that’s where you would find that. I’m dropping a link to the California civil rights page that has all links to all of the regulations. If you go under the Fair Employment and Housing Act regulations article, it’s article 18 disability that you want to click on. It has very good fleshed out regulations that have been in effect since January 2020 on reasonable accommodations and modifications.

They really do flesh out our state law statute, and they have a particular section on emotional support animals, or rather assistance animals generally.

Let me try to get back.

We had a question about – we had a couple of questions about vaccinations.

Did you want did you want to answer questions about whether assistance animals can be vaccinated? I mean, I think if you want to take on the federal and then I’ll talk about. Yeah, or I can talk about it. Well, I think my take under federal and state law is probably the same, which is, you know, vaccinations can be required by your local municipality, but your landlord is not the enforcer of those requirements.

So, it doesn’t – it’s not legitimate grounds, in my opinion, for a landlord to deny an accommodation request. If you’re asking me personally, should you have your animal vaccinated, I will tell you. Yes, you should comply with your local laws and it’s best for animals to do that. Sorry, know my computer? But it’s not a valid reason for denying a request. And I do understand this gets into a whole area about pet screening where they’re asking you about vaccinations and stuff, and that is something that a number of advocates are looking at. So, if you have questions about that, feel free to reach out to me if you’d like.

Yeah, I would agree with all that. And yeah, we are interested also in the pet screaming stuff. And you know, I think as long if it is very clear that landlords are not the enforcer of that and they can have reasonable rules that apply to everyone. But when it comes to the vaccinations, the authority is coming from the local municipality, usually. All right.

And there’s another question asking under the ADA regulation, business owners may not ask for documentation of the need for service animal. They may only ask whether the dog is trained, a train service animal and what task it performs. Has HUD similarly limited landlords and requesting documentation for service dogs? I mean, not in this memo that I recall. I mean, the prior guidance from HUD has always said you can’t ask a bunch of questions, you can’t ask for proof.

It was pretty consistent with the ADA in that if it’s not clear, you can ask for information about the person’s disability. But it’s not like that. So, HUD just hasn’t dealt with it in this new memo that I recall. I don’t know. Do you know?

Yeah. Agree with you on that. Also, I just cited to the regulations in the chat about documentation. I think in general under all of the anti-discrimination laws, when you’re talking about assistance animals, there is a pushback against asking for unnecessary documentation, asking for details about the nature of someone’s disability. I would expect that to continue, but we won’t know until we see any kind of rulemaking from HUD in that regard.

And yeah, under California law. Yeah, we’re clear to that. You know, it’s just those two questions. And you can’t ask someone, for example, to perform the task for you and say, well, how does that dog really do that? Yeah. Oh, and now we also were asked whether housing providers can ask or require that an animal be spayed or neutered.

I don’t know the answer to that. I’m sorry.

I mean, I think our take would generally be ‘no, that it’s just that unreasonable charge,’ you know, and or for assistance. Yeah. And I think that’s like – you can deny for an undue financial burden, a fundamental alteration or a direct threat to health or safety, and I don’t really see the nexus between those things. And, yeah, I can see reasonable rules if the dog was barking a lot or you’re not picking up the waste. But I don’t really see why a neuter, you know, that’s just my off-the-cuff opinion. But then somebody was asking whether anyone has done a chart or comparison of laws by each state. I’m unaware of one.

There were a couple of questions that asked something similar. I’ll talk to my colleagues at the National Fair Housing Alliance to see if something like that exists, or whether we could all work together to come up with something. It does seem important. I think California’s law – and I know a couple of you have jumped in to say that your states – have codified these rights as well.

If your state doesn’t have protections for people who use ESAs, I mean, think about engaging with your enforcement agencies, with legislature in your state to see if you can get that done. Because as the federal government continues to kind of backtrack on our rights, we really need to codify them locally in our individual states to make sure that we’re protected.

That’s kind of the phase of advocacy that we’re in at this point. We cannot expect the federal government to acknowledge or protect rights that we’ve become accustomed to. So, take it to your states.

Okay. So, another question. So, if the Fair Housing Act itself has not changed, a tenant could still file a lawsuit based on the denial of an ESA but HUD is saying they won’t investigate complaints based on that denial?

Correct.

Generally, do you think courts will be inclined to follow this recent HUD memo when looking at Fair Housing Act lawsuits based on emotional support animal issues?

Probably, but I don’t think it has any precedential value. So that’s what we would argue. I mean, certainly, defendants can and have been arguing for a lot of time that these guidance materials are not precedential when they favor tenants. So, now it’s our turn to say, hey, these guidance materials are not precedent, and the courts should be just looking at the text of the Fair Housing Act and the regulations, which provide generally for accommodation. And ESAs are a type of accommodation, regardless of the memo and enforce rights in that way.

I think it’s interesting that, I mean, maybe I’m nerding out too much, but HUD is using this one case where they’re making an argument – and their information about this case that talks about how that guidance is not – the agency guidance shouldn’t set a precedent. And now they’re passing and they’re using that to pass guidance to set a precedent. So, I think it’s really interesting. It’s like you can’t have it both ways.

So yeah, it is very much hypocritical.

But it’s still very concerning.
Right. Because of these guidance materials, we’re not only relied on by tenants but on landlords to, to understand what their requirements for what their obligations were. You know, because many for every landlord out there that wants to do the wrong thing, there are two that want to do the right thing.

So, they would refer to these guidance materials and not just in the fair housing context, but in other contexts. When the government is pulling back these materials, it really is making it hard for everyone to understand how we’re supposed to interact with each other. What are my rights as a person with a disability? What are my obligations towards my clients, tenants, whatever with a disability?

It just has made everything a lot more confusing. I will say on a positive note, I have seen some landlord materials go out that have criticized the memo, I guess for lack of a better way to put it, and advised the landlords to continue to accommodate their tenants. And that’s good. I know some landlord organizations have shared DREDF materials, which kind of are the same kinds of things that I went over in this training.

Let’s see.

Okay. All right. So, Scott Chang from National Fair Housing Alliance is actually in the audience and has confirmed that National Fair Housing Alliance would be happy to work with on putting together a comparison of state laws. So, once we have that compiled, I’m sure we’ll share it on both of our websites or circulated in some fashion. So, everybody who’s asking about the states that have protections, you should have that. Anonymous attendee wrote that they read the memo and they saw that it said one of the reasons ESAs are no longer prioritized is that 20% of fair housing complaints are in regards to ESAs.

I don’t know if that’s true or not. But even then, that’s no reason to do away with the whole concept of an ESA. Because the memo doesn’t just ‘not prioritize,’ it basically says there’s no such thing. And I think there’s a difference.

And I would say, like in California, a good – the vast – I would say the largest protected category that we see is denial of reasonable accommodation.

And a lot of those do involve ESAs. But again, you know, because people are being denied. It’s like – it seems like you would want those protections in place, and you would want people to have a right to file a complaint to make sure that their rights aren’t being violated. So, yeah, we see a lot of those cases.

Too much discrimination. So, we’re just going to pretend discrimination doesn’t exist.

Yeah. Which is great. So, we’re just going to – yeah.

Another anonymous attendee asked what remedies are available for tenants who have faced eviction because of an ESA. Do you want to take that one, Kara? Sure. I mean, in California, you do have a defense to an unlawful detainer. If it was an if discrimination in violation of state fair housing law was involved or federal law. So, you know, if it’s a reasonable accommodation – failure to give a reasonable accommodation is a violation of fair housing law.

And so that could be – that could definitely be a defense in an unlawful detainer. Our regulations actually contemplate this a bit as far as the idea that if even if you’re at your eviction trial and you bring up at the eviction trial that the reason you have a dog that’s, for example, prohibited by your landlord, is it’s an emotional support animal – you could still make that request then.

So, but I would say if you’re subject to eviction, I would contact Legal Aid or another attorney to assist you. But yes, it’s a defense and you could obviously file a complaint with us as well. At CRD, I will note that our complaint process is very slow and evictions move very fast. So, I would suggest that not be the only thing you do.

Yeah, I would echo that if you are a tenant or assisting a tenant who’s facing eviction, those processes do move really, really fast. You should defend the eviction first. Look at a fair housing complaint possibly after. You can always file an affirmative fair housing case after one. Let’s take one more question. Do you foresee the Department of Justice getting involved regarding the ESA guidance in the memo?

I don’t think so.

I can’t – I’m not going to weigh in on that one. But yeah, but I don’t. I don’t. Maybe you could say a little more about what you mean by ‘getting involved.’ I mean, I assume the DOJ is going to follow – for housing providers that are also subject to the ADA where the DOJ would really be getting involved – they’re going to follow the same kind of ADA standard in looking at they wouldn’t protect those anyway.

Yeah, I don’t. I don’t. I just don’t know. I don’t think the Department of Justice is going to do anything contrary to what the office for Legal Counsel is saying and what the administration’s general positions are at this time. So, I doubt it.

Thank you for everybody who participated in the chat. I think we’ll go ahead and wrap up here. We will send the slides around for anyone who needs a copy. And Ally, our paralegal, just put the evaluation form link in the chat. So please fill that out. That will help us. And please stay connected to DREDF. Visit our website.

We have a lot of information. If you are a person with a disability or you serve people with disabilities, including an explainer and frequently asked questions on this HUD memo, stay connected with us. And I know the Civil Rights Department is going to be updating their materials for those of you in California who have relied on their really excellent materials involving emotional support animals over the years. So, look for those updated materials in the near future.

You want to say anything else, Kara? Yeah, I just wanted to make a quick announcement that I was saying that we do these free webinars three times a month, and in August we’re doing one on emotional support animals. So, I’m going to be getting into even more detail on the things that I talked about today. It’s a one-hour webinar.

It’s free to everybody. And the materials have a link so you can figure out how to register. But we’d love to see you there. The Civil Rights Department trainings are really good, really accessible, and do use a lot of fun, fun examples to help the learning. So, I do encourage people, if you’re if you’re in California and practice in California, to attend those trainings.

Thanks, Michelle. I appreciate that. Shout out to the Civil Rights Department. Okay. Thank you everyone for joining us. And I hope you learned a little today. And please stay connected and please take good care.

Thank you everybody.

Thank you. Interpreters.

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