The Power of the Fair Housing Act: Assisting People with Mental Illness

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

By Katherine Hanson

A woman has just been mugged and it has caused her to experience symptoms of her PTSD. She shouts at her apartment manager - “I’m going to burn the office down!” Every room in a woman’s apartment is full to the ceiling with clothes, crafts, and magazines. Only a narrow path remains for walking. A man is wandering around his apartment complex, shouting at people nobody else can see. Each of these people faced eviction and homelessness as the result of symptoms of their mental illness. Fortunately, the Fair Housing Act gave each of these people a path to stable housing and, in this post, I will describe how the Fair Housing Act can be used to assist people with mental illness who run afoul of their landlord due to symptoms of their mental illness.

The Fair Housing Act – What is it?

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) is a federal law that prohibits discrimination in housing. The FHA makes it illegal to discriminate against people when engaging in housing-related activities like renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, and buying insurance. The FHA applies in all 50 states and provides protections against discrimination based on seven protected categories: race, color, national original, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. I’m going to focus on disability discrimination.

What is a disability?

The FHA hasn’t been changed since 1988 so it still uses the word “handicap” but I’m going to use the term “disability” instead. The FHA says that a person has a disability if they have a mental or physical impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities. So, what is a “major life activity?” Major life activities are things like caring for one's self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working. The FHA also says that a person can be considered disabled if they have a record of having an impairment (like if they have a record of hospitalization for mental illness) or if they are regarded as having an impairment (this means that a landlord believes somebody has a disability when they don’t).

Reasonable Accommodations

A person makes a request for a "reasonable accommodation" any time they make clear to a housing provider (like a landlord or property manager) that they are requesting an exception or change to a rule, policy, or practice because of a disability. Some common accommodations include asking for an assigned and/or accessible parking space, asking for the landlord to send a reminder to pay rent, or asking for an exception to a “no pets” policy so a tenant can keep an assistance animal. There must be some relationship, called a “nexus,” between the request for accommodation and the disability. For example, if a person who is deaf requests an assigned parking space, there is likely not a “nexus” between the disability (deafness) and the requested accommodation (assigned parking space). But if a person with mobility impairments asks for an assigned parking space, the nexus is obvious.

In some cases, a housing provider can deny a request for reasonable accommodation. A request can be denied if there is no disability-related need for the accommodation or if the request is not “reasonable.” So, what is “reasonable?” A request for accommodation is not reasonable if it would impose an undue financial and administrative burden (cost too much money) on the housing provider or would require a fundamental change of the provider’s operations (like asking for your landlord to drive you to the store when they don’t normally provide transportation).

Reasonable Accommodations as a Tool to Assist People with Mental Illness

How can a reasonable accommodation request help the people described in the opening paragraph of this blog? It might seem like a deal-breaker if a tenant tells their landlord that they will burn the building down or if they’ve filled their apartment to the ceiling with junk. The Fair Housing Act can be used to assist people with mental illness even in these difficult circumstances.

For example, the woman who had piles and piles of stuff in her apartment (we’ll call her Alana) may have been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder or some other disability that has caused her to violate her lease by collecting so much stuff. Alana can request, as a reasonable accommodation of her disability, that she be permitted additional time to seek assistance to help her deal with the symptoms of her disability and meet the terms of her lease. The needed assistance may include not only time to access mental health care but also time to get physical help to empty the apartment.

Alana can make this request at any time, even if her landlord has filed an eviction against her because of all the stuff in the apartment. I should point out that reasonable accommodations don’t let a person violate their lease, but they can let a person follow their lease is some modified way.

Similarly, the person who told their landlord they would burn down the office (we’ll call her Belinda) can request a reasonable accommodation if the lease violation (threatening a fire) was caused by her disability. For example, if Belinda’s outburst was directly related to her disability (like anxiety or PTSD), she can request a reasonable accommodation to ask the landlord not to evict her because of the outburst. Depending on the particular facts of Belinda’s case, she may need to seek additional assistance (like therapy) to help her follow the rules of her lease and lessen the likelihood that she will violate the lease again.

The third scenario, the man wandering around and shouting at people nobody else can see, highlights the way that people with mental illness are often misunderstood and taken to be a threat. This man (we’ll call him Cornelius) was hallucinating as the result of his mental illness. He did not approach or harm anyone and did not shout at any real person, only at the hallucinations. Cornelius’ landlord called the police and then tried to evict him because he claimed he was a threat. Cornelius needed compassion and some assistance. Cornelius was fortunate to have a legal aid lawyer who determined that he had not been able to access his prescribed medication and requested, as a reasonable accommodation, that Cornelius be provided additional time to work with his care providers to resolve the medication problem and ensure he could meet the terms of his lease.  

There are lots of other ways that the Fair Housing Act’s reasonable accommodation provision can be used to help people with mental illness. Some other examples include: asking to participate in community meetings remotely because of anxiety, asking to keep a small potted plant garden as part of mental health therapy, and asking to communicate with management only in writing to avoid encounters that trigger PTSD symptoms. If a person has a disability, including a mental illness, and has a disability-related need to change a landlord’s rules, then they may be able to seek a reasonable accommodation to help them remain in their housing and use and enjoy their home just like anyone else.

If you take only one thing away from the post, I hope it is that the Fair Housing Act is a powerful tool for people with disabilities. Even when someone has violated their lease (perhaps repeatedly or severely) a reasonable accommodation may still be able to help keep that person from being evicted and becoming homeless.

Reach Out for Help!

If you are having a problem with your housing because of a mental illness, or if you know someone who is, you can contact Disability Rights Florida for information about your rights. Learn more about the Fair Housing Act on their website and, if you need further assistance, locate your local legal aid organization.