1 Fair Housing Webcast Presenter: Barbara Chandler >> TAJAUNA: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the webcast: Fair Housing, An Overview And More. My name is Tajauna Arnold, and I'm with ILRU. I'll be moderating today's webcast and voicing your questions to the presenter. You can submit questions any time throughout this webcast. However, I want to encourage you to submit questions you may already have at the beginning of this webcast. You can submit questions by clicking the submit question button at the bottom of your RealOne Player screen or simply address it to webcast@ilru.org. Questions will be posed to the presenter upon the presenter's request. Additionally, if anyone has technical difficulties during this webcast, please call us at (713)520-0232 and dial 0 for the operator. This number is both voice and TTY capable. As previously mentioned, today's webcast is Fair Housing, An Overview And More. It is being presented by Barbara Chandler, Housing Program Director for Adaptive Environments. She manages the Fair Housing 2 Accessibility First Design and Construction Resource Center, a nationwide service that provides technical assistance on compliance with the federal Fair Housing Act requirements. Ms. Chandler has advocated for persons with disabilities, elders, victims of domestic violence and low income families for 25 years. She was formerly the policy analyst for the City of Boston, Office of Civil Rights, where she dealt with fair housing, disability and civil rights issues. She was the past director of the Coordinated Aging, Rehabilitation and Disability Services project, CARDS, for the Executive Office of Elder Affairs as well as a planner with the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council. She has served on the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board and sits on the Board of Directors for the Citizens Housing and Affordable Planning Association. She has been recognized for her housing advocacy work for persons with disabilities by the Citizens Housing and Affordable Planning Association, receiving their 1994 Community Service Award, and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. She received her bachelor of arts degree in sociology from the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth. She did her graduate studies in the field of sociology at Indiana State University. 3 And with that, Barbara, I turn the webcast over to you. >> BARBARA: Thank ILRU for giving me the opportunity to speak to everyone on fair housing. What I'd like to do before we get into the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 is just to establish a framework of where this comes from. The Fair Housing Act is a Civil Rights Act and it's different than most access codes that states and local communities have because it is civil rights. Access codes are not. So it's important to understand that what the Fair Housing Act is trying to do goes way beyond just technical specific cases of how wide a doorway has to be or what defines accessibility. It actually gets at a key phrase in the act and something you'll hear me refer to is that it aims to create environments of equal access and opportunity to housing for persons with disabilities. That's the principle, and everything that comes out of it is geared towards that principle. Now, one of the things that happened in 1988 was that the Fair Housing Act, which was originally passed in 1968, was amended and for the very first time they included persons with disabilities. In order to have full coverage of the act, the department of housing and urban development, which is the federal agency that's 4 responsible for enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, needed to take the Fair Housing Act further than it had ever gone before which was for the very first time to incorporate design standards. Before I get to that, I want to sort of discuss some general concepts. One of them is the definition of accessibility itself, which I think is probably the most confusing area for people. We all have this concept of what accessibility means. This is, again, civil rights law, but it has significant regulatory requirements that go with it; and one of them is actually the definition of what is accessibility. You have to be careful about talking about that because the level of accessibility under the act is significantly less than what most people would think of as being accessible. Their standards pretty much look at how to create minimum levels of accessibility for persons who are wheelchair users or have physical disabilities. So it doesn't really address the issue of people who have hearing and/or vision loss, who may have cognitive issues, it just frankly addresses the physical requirements that would provide a minimum level of accessibility for people with physical disabilities. When the Act was first passed, what HUD did was try to encourage states to adopt the Fair Housing Act 5 Guidelines into its own state code. This was called codification. And what that means is when a state does an amendment of its code or changes its code, it's going to demand that all multi-family units would have to meet the requirements of the Fair Housing Act, in addition to whatever the state did. Now, this was never mandatory for states to do, and in reality very few states have done it. Florida, for instance, just recently did it a couple of years ago. The advantage of codification of the Fair Housing Act into the local or state codes is that under the Fair Housing Act there is no official inspection service. So that when the housing inspectors go out to determine whether they're going to issue building permits, occupancy permits or do plan reviews, they'll only be looking for the local and state code. They will not be checking for fair housing compliance. However, if the state such as Florida codifies the act into its own access code, then as a matter of routine, the local business -- excuse me -- the local building inspectors will definitely be looking for fair housing compliance as well. So there is an advantage that you can catch noncompliance at a very early stage. In those states that did not codify the Fair Housing Act -- again, there is no inspection happening 6 to maintain compliance -- and it becomes similar to ADA in that the complaints there have to be complaints in order for HUD to investigate whether something is compliant or not. So you don't get the frequency of catching errors early and you don't have the comprehensiveness of having a building inspect or look at it. So that's basic framework of what a civil rights law such as fair housing and a local code -- state code is, and how they either come together or don't come together. And one other thing that's important to remember, in states that have different access codes than fair housing, what architects have to do is to make sure that they are following fair housing in addition to whatever the local access code is. And then if there is, for instance, federal funding; then they'll also have to look for the technical specifications that are triggered by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. If there is state or local municipal funding, then they would have to look at Title II of ADA for those technical specifications. So you can understand how architects have to go through several different codes and see how they match. And they have to do it on a specification by specification level. They can't make a universal decision that the state code is more 7 accessible or Section 504 is or fair housing. They have to look at every single specification and do a comparison and they have to choose on that specification what gives the highest level of accessibility for that feature and follow it. So I want to, at this time, take any questions that people may have on the sort of framework of where we're going with this discussion. >> TAJAUNA: Barbara, we actually haven't gotten any questions on the framework yet. So if you want to continue on. >> BARBARA: I'll keep going then. I want to get into the act itself. As I said earlier, the Fair Housing Act was amended in 1988 and persons with disabilities were added as a protected class. A protected class is a sociological division of individuals within this country that due to various characteristics have been denied equal access and opportunity to housing. When the act was first passed, it focused primarily on issues of race and ethnicity, gender were added later, age was add later and persons with disabilities -- and the same year persons with disabilities was added, familiar I will yale status was added which means you cannot discriminate against families that have children under the age of 18. 8 The act itself sort of breaks into two large areas: One is very, very similar to what the act was in 1965, which talks about not discriminating against persons with disabilities in a wide variety of housing transaction. This could mean something that ranges from a person with a disability trying to arrange for a mortgage, screening procedures that are used for mortgages, rental applications. It can be used for policies and procedures in services that are offered by the housing entity, the property owner, the property manager; and it would cover the blatant discrimination of someone saying I'm not going to rent or sell to a person with a disability even to the point of I won't allow a person with a disability to move into my neighborhood or my city. Group homes oftentimes fall under this section of the act as well as zoning regulations. This also covers two major provisions of the act called reasonable accommodation and reasonable modification. Reasonable accommodation, under the act, is different than the way it plays out in Section 504 and ADA. Reasonable accommodation is a request by a person with a disability to waive or change policies, practices, services in order to allow greater accessibility and use of the premises by a person with a 9 disability. This is very, very broad. The only reason that a reasonable accommodation can be denied by the property ownership is because it would cause an undue administrative and financial burden. It has to meet both conditions, or it will change the basic nature of the program. Now, I'll give you an example of the last of two those conditions. If someone was looking to rent an apartment and they used a personal care attendant, and they demanded that the housing provider would have to supply the personal attendant services as part of the housing arrangement, that could be rejected because it's attempting to change the basic nature of the program. The first part of the denial, the undue burden that would be both financial and administrative is the one that's more frequently used when a person with a disability makes a reasonable accommodation request. And again, reasonable accommodation requests are very broad. They would include things such as -- I have a traumatic brain injury, I often forget to pay my rent on the first of the month. Could I have someone from property management call me on the last day of each month to tell me the rent is due? It would include -- even though the building wasn't required at the time of construction to be made accessible, but I need to have 10 grab bars put in or a ramp -- excuse me -- grab bars put in. That could be a reasonable accommodation request. If somebody is moving into a building that has no pets, if they use an assistive animal, then that's a reasonable accommodation request. So it's very wide and is individualized to the need of the person. I want to talk a little bit about assistive animals because I know that's a very controversial issue, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but just to give you an understanding of how that's treated under fair housing because it's very different than how it's treated under ADA. HUD uses the term assistive animal -- very, very broad. An assistive animal would include highly trained service animals such as a signalling dog or sight animal, right down to animals that have no training at all. It does not require that the animal be trained or certified, just that there be a connection between the person who has a disability and the need for such an assistive animal, and that's really all that's needed. It doesn't have to go any further. We've seen cases at DCRC where housing providers have tried to charge pet fees, pet rents, increasing liability coverage, a wide variety of issues. Reasonable accommodations cannot incur any cost to the person who makes such a request, so that any property 11 owner or housing provider that is levying charges such as pet deposits and things of that nature, that would be a violation of the fact. Now, I want to go on the other provision which is reasonable modification. A reasonable modification is a physical alteration to the premises to allow greater accessibility and use by the person with the disability. It would cover any alterations to the unit itself or to the common use areas. The housing provider can demand that when the person with the disability vacates the premises, that it be returned to its original state. The trick on reasonable modifications is that a housing provider does not pay for the actual modifications, it is the person with the disability who does so. And it's the person with the disability who would have to pay for restoring the unit back. There is a slight loop hole on the common use areas that if someone asked for a reasonable modification, for instance, to the laundry room, they would not have to restore that to its original condition when they vacated the premises. Any questions on the reasonable accommodation or reasonable modification provisions? >> TAJAUNA: Actually, we have a couple. >> BARBARA: Okay. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, the first one asks -- 12 first it states there are independent living centers that provide to its residents, housekeeping, laundry and two meals each day. However, there is a prohibition of the use of a wheelchair in the dining room. The policy is to have one of the wait staff assist the individual in transferring to a dining chair from a wheel or power chair after the wheelchair is stored in an area a way from the dining area. When the resident wants to leave the dining room, it is necessary for one of the wait staff to get the wheelchair, return it to the dining room and assist the resident in transferring from the dining chair to the wheelchair. These are not low income residences, but they are marketed as independent living facilities. When this practice was challenged, there was a very firm statement that no one will be allowed to stay in his or her wheelchair while eating in the dining room. Can you discuss this policy in light of fair housing provisions? >> BARBARA: Well, certainly. A policy such as that would be considered clearly discriminatory under the Fair Housing Act. That's a very common policy in independent living centers, skilled nursing facilities, assisted living, whatever they want call themselves, but it is considered discriminatory because that policy has what's referred to as a disparate impact 13 under the terms and conditions portion of the act, which means it's creating a negative and harmful effect on persons with disabilities. All policies in a housing development, whether it's assisted living, condominiums, co-ops, standard rental public housing, all the policies have to be disability neutral. This policy is not neutral in anyway, shape or form. So it would be considered to be discriminatory. On another note outside of the act, I always find this policy to be very strange because I think it creates a safety hazard as well. In terms of needing to quickly evacuate people out of a dining area, if the wheelchairs -- if people were not in their wheelchairs or they don't have their Walkers nearby or whatever device they use, this is going to slow down evacuation. If it's an individual emergency of a person with a disability not having their mobility device right there, it creates a liability I think for the housing provider that if they really thought about it, they should want to assume, but the most important thing is it would be considered a violation of those individual's civil rights to be treated in an equal manner as the other nondisabled members in that facility. So I definitely would encourage anyone who was seeing this to do two things: One, to point out to them that this was clearly 14 a violation of the Act; second, especially if you were talking to advocates is to organize a fair housing complaint that could be filed on this issue. I think it's a very serious issue and one that's becoming more and more common. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, thank you. Barbara, could you restate who has requirements under fair housing and also could you explain multi-family versus single-family dwellings and its requirements? >> BARBARA: Certainly. The federal Fair Housing Act covers any multi-family building which has four or more units in it and was first occupied after March 13th, 1991. So anything that was built or occupied prior to that date is not covered by the act. Anything that was built after that and the building itself has four or more units, then there is going to be some level of coverage by the Fair Housing Act. Multi-family housing is defined as any building that has more than one unit of housing into it. So, for instance, a duplex has two units. It's considered multi-family housing, but would not be covered by fair housing because it doesn't hit the four or more trigger point. So they have to meet all of it. Now, in addition to being four or more units, and being first occupied after March 13th, 1991, the 15 presence of an elevator is an additional trigger. If there is an elevator in the building, then every single unit in that building must be made accessible according to the design and construction requirements of the act. If there is no elevator in the building, then only the ground floor units must be accessible as defined by the act. The ground floor units are defined as the first level of residential units that appear above grade level. So, for example, when you have commercial units at the first level, you know, small stores, whatever, business offices; and then first level of residential units actually appear above that, according to the Fair Housing Act that ground floor would be the units that need to be accessible. Now, to make life more confusing for everybody, multilevel units, which is different than a multi-family building. A multi-family building is a building with four or more units in it. A single residential unit has more than one level to it, a lot of people call these townhouses, but the act refers to them as multilevel units. A multilevel unit that is in a building with no elevators will not be covered by the act. However, if it's in a building where there is a common use elevator, 16 then that elevator must serve the primary entrance level of that unit and that unit has to meet requirements of 3 through 7 of the act and I'll go over those requirements a little later. Now, if the multilevel unit has a private internal elevator, which means there is an elevator inside the unit that connects the different floors, then that will trigger full coverage by the Fair Housing Act. Now, the act does not distinguish by funding sources, so it would cover anything from government funds low income housing right up to luxury developments. It covers condominiums, co-ops, public housing, anything in the nature -- the funding of the housing is not important under fair housing, which is very different than ADA and Section 504. But fair housing is very comprehensive of what it covers after March 13th, 1991. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, so just to clarify in regards to the town home exemption, even if there are four or more townhomes that are attached, if there is no elevator, then there is no fair housing obligations? >> there is no design an construction obligation. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. All right, the next question asked if the local building code is somewhat in conflict with the chosen safe harbor code of the 17 designer, is following the revision under local code a de facto fair housing violation, or does it need to be reviewed for compliance? This is getting to be -- this is getting to the bigger question of can you mix elements from safe harbor codes and still meet the requirements of the amendments to the Fair Housing Act? >> BARBARA: Okay, this is one of the big questions we get all the time in our program. You have to meet the safe harbor requirements. Those are the minimum. So if you're dealing with a local code that's different than one from the eight safe harbors -- just for everyone's knowledge, HUD has designated eight ake standards as safe hair bors. In most cases they would meet the accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act. So when you're designing a project, you choose a safe harbor that you're going to follow. You then have to take your local code and you do that specification by specification comparison. On whatever feature of the house or unit you're looking at, you have to choose the one that gives you the highest level of accessibility. So, for instance, if the Fair Housing Act safe harbor pretty uniformly says that an accessible route inside the unit is 36 inches wide, that's the minimum. For point of illustration, let's say the local code that the internal accessible route in the unit has to be 40 18 inches. If you are the person doing the designing, you would automatically go and take the 40 inches because that creates more accessibility than the 36. You would not be in violation of the act because you exceeded the act. No one gets in trouble for exceeding the accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act. The issue sometimes becomes -- is when you're looking at things that are not clearcut. One of the big controversies, particularly in the gulf corridor states, is the local code requirements around water and wind protection versus fair housing. Fair housing, for instance, does not allow a change in level from the interior of the unit to the exterior of a balcony or deck when the balcony or deck is made of impervious surface greater than four inches. There are some local counties, cities and states that are actually requiring a greater change in level because of those problems. I don't know exactly how to tell people to resolve that except that you have to meet the Fair Housing Act. You cannot use local safety provisions such as the one on changing level that I just gave in order to avoid meeting the act. What we've suggested to people is that they have to be creative in their design solutions. So in the case of the changing levels, the real problem is not the change in level, it's the use of 19 sliding glass doors. Sliding glass doors do not do a good job of protecting for water or wind damage. So we've talked to people about switching from sliding glass doors to, for instance, swinging doors, French doors. Other times we've talked to them about sinking the mechanism of the sliding door into the balcony to accommodate the change in level. It's a regulatory problem, but I think the only way people are going to be able to do that is by coming up with some create design solutions. I know that is not a satisfactory answer to a lot of architects, but it's the only one I can give right now. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, the next question says I spoke over the phone with a woman who is very sensitive and has reactions to certain kinds of chemicals. She lives in an apartment complex. In the past few months, she has had great difficulty dealing with the chemicals emitted by certain kinds of plug in air fresheners in neighboring apartments. She has gotten some help from our local fair housing office submitting letters requesting accommodations to her landlord, but there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done so she can stay in her apartment. Any thoughts? >> BARBARA: Well, I'm just a little curious about this. If there was an arrangement made 20 with the housing provider, a reasonable accommodation one, I wonder if it went as far as to actually look at what the tenants immediately surrounding her are. Usually for people who have multiple chemical sensitivities, there is no easy one solution does all. Air filtration systems work well. Box air conditioners opposed to the person being plugged into a central air conditioning system sometimes do a fairly good job. It becomes difficult though when you have to deal with other tenant behaviors and preferences. The housing provider could require that the tenants immediately surrounding her unit not be allowed to use substances that would trigger her chemical sensitivities. That's a hard one for property owners to do. We've seen it sometimes with someone that might be a smoker in the building and it just filters into everything. It depends a great deal on the cooperation. Now, if somebody who is a tenant surrounding this person has been asked to, for instance, stop smoking, stop using the plug in air fresheners, things of that nature and they persist in doing so, they might be viewed as a person who is violating the fair housing rights of the person with the disability. There is a technical side to this issue and a civil rights side. The civil rights side is it's not just the property owner that's 21 responsible for fair housing, it is also the other tenants in the building. So if a request has been made or the property owner has developed a policy, for instance, saying no plug in air fresheners and somebody persists in doing so, then they have violated the civil rights of the tenant with the multiple chemical sensitivity and a complaint can be initiated. That's a tough one, but it is possible. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, another listener asks can an apartment complex prohibit a resident from bringing her companion animal into common areas like on-site chapel, mailbox, et cetera. Would it make a difference if it were a service animal? >> BARBARA: Actually, they could not forbid the person from bringing their assistive animal in common use areas unless it was creating or endangering other residents. So they can make requests, for instance, that if you brought your companion animal or any type of assistive animal into a community room, that the animal be properly restrained. Companion animals, it's important for the audience to remember, can be a wide variety of different types of animals so that you don't normally think of, for instance, a cat on a leash, but if there is someone in the complex who is afraid of cats, they can make an issue about the animal 22 being allowed to roam freely. They can't prevent you from bringing it into the common use area, but reasonable conditions can be imposed such as proper restraint, making sure the animal is well maintained, things of that nature, but the animals are allowed, but it can be questionable at times. We had one incidence where we had a young man whose companion animal was actually a boa constrictor and he is a person that's coping with mental illness. Wrapping the boa constrictor around himself actually made him very secure. He had a habit sometimes of walking into the community room with the boa constrictor around him. This is an elderly complex. So there was a question whether the other individuals -- the other elders were endangered by this so we had to refer them to some place to see if it could be mediated out. But it doesn't make any difference whether again it's a trained service animal or it's a companion animal that I just picked up at the pound but allows you to cope with depression, anxiety or whatever. They are allowed in public areas and common use areas. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, the next question actually goes along with that. It states without requiring any kind of verification, how then do you make a differentiation between a person with a disability who 23 has a pet and wants to keep it and a person with a disability who needs a service animal or companion animal? >> BARBARA: Good question. A housing provider is allowed to ask for documentation from the individual with disabilities' health care provider that, A, it's a person with a disability; and B, they need this reasonable accommodation of the assistive animal. Now, the person does not, nor do the health care provider, have to disclose what their disability is or what that animal does. It's just a straightforward thing that says Ms. Chandler is a person with a disability and uses an assistive animal. Signed, Dr. Smith. So housing providers are allowed to ask for that. Now, that means you're relying on the integrity of the person with the disability and the health care provider to be honest about this and can't say it's 100 percent all the time, but most health care providers are not going to risk their reputation by signing letters that are claiming something that's not true. So as a housing provider, you have the right to ask for that type of documentation. You do not have the right to ask to see medical records, to find out exactly what the nature of the disability is, to find out exactly 24 what service the animal provides. >> TAJAUNA: If a person with a disability requires a special lock not normally installed on housing units, is the housing landlord required to purchase the lock? What if the tenant buys it? Is the landlord required to install it? >> BARBARA: If the person with the disability, due to their disability, cannot handle the locking system, then this would be considered a reasonable accommodation because it's a service. Everyone being provided with a lock -- actually the services you are providing is security. If the person with the disability can't handle the lock, then they're not getting the service that they have requested. So they can request that a different locking system be used and also the housing provider would have the right to have a duplicate of any type of keys, pass cards, pass words, whatever that were being used; but you have to be a little careful on this one because at some point this can become a reasonable modification if you're talking about a whole new system that has to be maybe wired in. Then it would move to reasonable modification and then the property owner would have to allow it, but the person with the disability would have to pay for it. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. The next listener 25 asks, can you give some examples of reasonable accommodation in an apartment complex for a personal assistant who resides in the same apartment as the person with a disability? >> BARBARA: Okay. The reasonable accommodations again are customized to the needs of the person with the disability. So determining eligibility when you're applying for a unit, sometimes housing providers say they want the names of all the people that will either be living there or staying for long time periods on the lease. For some people who have live in personal care attendants or personal care attendants who may be overnight, they have the right to make a reasonable accommodation request that the names of those personal care attendants not be included on the lease. There is a good reason for this. Part of it is the minute someone is on the lease, then that becomes a financial commitment for that. The second issue is because of the high turnover of PCAs, that means every time a PCA leaves and you hire a new one, you have to renegotiate the lease. So you can request they not be included on the lease. However, the housing provider is allowed to do a criminal check on the personal care attendant just as they would any applicant that's coming in and can tell the person that due to the history -- 26 the criminal history of the personal care attendant, that they can say that that personal care attendant would not be allowed into the unit. They usually do that when the criminal check comes back with some very, very serious offenses. You can always appeal that, but it's sort of difficult at times. Now, you can also, in terms of a personal care attendant -- this usually happens in subsidized housing more than anything else. If you're looking for a two bedroom apartment and you're an individual with a disability with no other persons living with you, but you need that second bedroom because you have a live-in personal care attendant or a personal care attendant who stays overnight or you're an individual that has a great deal of medical equipment. So, like, for instance spare oxygen tanks and things of that nature need to be in a second room. You can request a reasonable accommodation to the policy of how apartments are assigned based on sizes of family. So you can as a person who is living alone ask for a two bedroom because you have a personal care attendant who is overnight or live-in. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, thank you. The next listener asks, please address the legal standing of condo and apartment boards in disallowing exterior 27 accessibility for individuals due to unsightly ramps or some other issue. And who would enforce it if it is legal -- I'm sorry -- who would enforce that if it is illegal? >> BARBARA: Condo associations, homeowner associations, co-op boards are viewed the same way under fair housing as you would a traditional landlord. So when a request is made for a reasonable modification such as installing a ramp, putting up handrails, the issue has to be looked at in terms of -- under reasonable modification, the housing provider, the condo board, for instance, cannot turn down the request but can only ask that it be done in a workman like fashion, which really has nothing to do with aesthetics. It has to do with -- that this was built according to local ordinances, that it's safe to use, and that the person who made the request for it assumes the cost. So condo boards cannot turn down reasonable modification requests based on aesthetics and there is significant case law to that effect. >> TAJAUNA: Okay -- >> BARBARA: Before we go on, I'm sorry to interrupt. I want to go a little bit further on condo boards because they also become tricky sometimes when you're asking for a reasonable accommodation. And 28 it's the same principle that they cannot turn down a reasonable accommodation unless it's going to cause an undue financial and administrative burden to them or if it changes the nature of the program. So when someone asks an accessible parking space or asks for a parking space that's closer to the entrance to their unit, or asks for a parking space designated for them, the condo association cannot turn it down based on the assumption that if they give it to one person, other condo owners will ask for it. That's not considered an undue financial and administrative burden. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, and along that same line, the next listener asks -- it says I need to have a ramp built so I can get into my house. I was told by a local housing board that the deed restriction would not permit me to build it. What should I do? >> BARBARA: That would be a reasonable accommodation request. I'm a little surprised that somebody would have a deed restriction is something like that. There might be some more details to this, but I would challenge that as a reasonable accommodation request. And that would be something is that should be looked at in terms the of a fair housing investigation. You can't have deed restrictions that interfere with a person's civil rights. So what the reasonable 29 accommodation is if there is such a deed restriction, this individual could ask for at least in their case to have it waived in order to allow for their use of the premises; but if I was a member of the condo board, I'd be seriously looking -- or homeowner's association, I would be seriously looking at the legality of having a deed restriction that interferes with someone's fair housing rights. That puts the condo board in a very tricky liability situation. >> TAJAUNA: Which is interesting that you say that because the DBTAC here at ILRU, that's a common complaint or question we get from individuals with disabilities that the homeowners association won't let them have a ramp or has asked them to take a ramp down because of aesthetics, so on and so forth, and if an individual comes up against something like this, we usually just refer them to fair housing. We are still accurate in doing that? >> BARBARA: You are very accurate in doing that. What will happen in a case like that is it will go to either one of the fair housing equal opportunity houses of HUD or it goes to a government agency, usually state or local, that is funded by HUD called the fair housing assistance program or FAP. Those organizations are funded to investigate and 30 enforce fair housing. So they will go into situations if some bun says I asked my condo association for my right to build a ramp, and they said no because it's against the aesthetics policy that's in the deed, then what will happen is the fair housing investigator will look at all the paperwork, will talk to the individual who is filing the complaint, will talk to the condo association. Oftentimes stuff like this they try mediate it by just pointing out that, no, you shouldn't be doing that. If not, it goes into a full investigation and it's important to remember that when a full investigation happens, the investigator doesn't just look at the unit of the person who files the complaint. It then opens it up for them to look at everything in that development. So not agreeing to this actually leaving the condo board wide open to other issues to be identified as fair housing violations through the investigation. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, thank you very much. Barbara, I know you have some more that you want to talk about. We do have more questions, but if you Juan to go ahead and continue with your presentation, we'll take more questions. >> BARBARA: Let me do a few minutes -- I keep talking about what is compliant under the act and 31 I've never said what those things real ry. Let me spend a few minutes talking about the design and construction requirements of the act so that people will understand what is covered and what isn't. Now, there are seven design and construction requirements that the fair housing amendment act establishes. They are very general, and it's important to remember that the real technical specifications are not in the act itself but in the eight safe harbors that are identified by the act. And the recognition -- most of the information I'm giving you is on the website for fair housing accessibility first and that website is www.fairhousingfirst.org. Our telephone number is there as well, but these seven design and construction requirements that I'm about to go through are all on there. So you can see it in greater detail. The first requirement is that there needs to be an accessible entrance on an accessible route. That means starting from all the vehicle and pedestrian arrival points, there has to be an accessible route that connects those arrival points with either a primary entrance or primary entrances. And the definition of what makes an accessible route is all on the slope of the route itself. For instance, one in twenty would be a pretty level slope. 32 If you have to use ramps as part of it, then you're talking about a one in twelve allowable slope. The width of the route, which is 36-inches and then that gets you to the door. Which would be the primary entrance. The second requirement is that all public and common use areas need to be accessible, and there is a whole shrew of technical specifications depending on what type of public and common use area you're talking about. And that's a huge area in terms of what you classify as common use. So a community laundry room, a social room, recreational facilities, something as simple as if you have park benches on the development, then that means some of those park benches need to be accessible. If you have a nature trail, mailboxes -- if they are in a common service area or if there is a common use dumpster. All of these things need to be accessible and they also need to be on an accessible route. The third requirement is that of usable doors. That means that all the doors have to be designed so that they allow the passage into and within the premises by being sufficiently wide to allow passage by persons who are using wheelchairs. What that breaks down to be is there are two types of doors under fair housing. 33 There is an accessible door which will be your primary entrance, the entrance that goes into the building if it's common use and everybody uses it and also the entrance that goes into the unit. That door, the outside of it would be accessible. What that really means is that you're talking about a clear opening of an absolute 32-inches. Secondary doors which would be the doors that would be inside the unit itself would be considered usable doors so they have a nominal 32-inch clear opening give or take an eighth of an inch or three eighths of an inch. There is no requirements under usable doors for specific type of hardware, but they do say it recommends that you shouldn't be using hardware that requires excessive pinching, grasping, pressure whatever. For an accessible door you can't use that type of hardware that requires that type of maneuvering. On usable doors it's a recommendation. The fourth requirement is that there needs to be an accessible route into and throughout the dwelling unit itself. So that 36 inch accessible route we talked about earlier goes from the arrival points through the primary entrance door to the unit primary entrance door and then once you're inside the unit there has to be that 36 inch path, accessible path that connects up the 34 elements of the unit to it. The fifth one is that light switches, electrical outlets and environmental controls all have to be at accessible heights. Interestingly enough, some of the things that are not covered under this is fuse boxes and other types of switching systems. So it really just refers directly to your standard light switch outlets and environmental controls. The sixth requirement is that the walls in the bathroom have to be reinforced for the later installation of grab bars. The grab bars are not mandated, but the wall reinforcement -- some people refer to it as blocking -- has to be there. The last one is that the kitchens and bathrooms inside the dwelling units must have sufficient maneuvering space so that a person in a wheelchair can maneuver and use the fixtures. You're basically talking about 30-inches by 48-inch rectangle that's going to be in front of the fixtures. There is some allowance for overlapping. So the common myth that an accessible bathroom has to be huge and therefore costly is not true. You can actually do a fairly small bathroom and still meet the fair housing requirements in the construction mandates. So that's the design and construction piece. As I said earlier, it's a very 35 minimum level accessibility. It establishes a baseline. Oftentimes people mix up minimum with allowable. Minimum means that that's the bottom. You can always go higher, and we try to encourage people to think of these seven requirements as just the starting point. One thing that doesn't jump out at you when you talk about these things, and I know it's one of the more controversial issues is that of accessible parking spaces. That would be included under requirement 2 which is the accessible public and common use areas. Parking is a common use area. There is a specific formula in how you determine how parking spaces must be accessible. And this, again, is a minimum. What you have to do is determine, first of all, how many units in the development are covered. Then you determine the parking space formula that the development your building uses. Are they figuring one parking space per unit? A lot of places actually use one and a half parking spaces per unit. So you would multiply the number of covered spaces -- the number of covered units by the number of parking spaces that serve those units. And then you would divide that by 2 percent. And that gives you the number of accessible parking spaces you need to have, but 2 percent, not less than 1. So there will always have to be in covered dwellings a minimum of 36 one unit. If after doing the math you come out with a fraction, you always round up to the next highest number. Now, this is a minimum, and just because you followed the minimum doesn't necessarily mean you're home free. I always advise people to be well a aware of who they are serving with their housing. If you're building a 55 only community, you are definitely going to need more than 2 percent of your parking space serving the covered units. So you have to plan ahead. Restriping parking lots can be quite costly and that's what happens when people don't plan ahead for having more accessibility than 2 percent because then tenants become disabled. They ask for an accessible parking space. They are entitled to it under the act as a reasonable accommodation and suddenly you're restriping the parking lot. So I always tell people, really think about who is moving into that development and that 2 percent may not be sufficient minimum for that to start with. So at this point I'll take any questions from anybody who has anything these design and construction or any additional questions. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. Let's see, we had a parking question, but I think you answered it. How does fair housing address for parking, where handicapped parking should be placed an configured? 37 >> BARBARA: Again, the number would be the 2 percent of the total number of parking spaces serving the covered units. Where they are located -- they have to be on the shortest route between the parking lot and the primary entrance. And then there are all certifications about the width of the parking space and access aisle, if curb ramps are needed. One thing that fair housing does not mandate is accessible van spaces although someone can ask for that as a reasonable modification. It does not mandate van accessible parking spaces. >> TAJAUNA: All right, we have someone who asks in an apartment complex, who is responsible for paying for accessibility changes made to common areas? >> BARBARA: It depends. If the accessibility alterations are happening because the common areas were not built according to the Fair Housing Act when it was first designed and constructed and was covered by the act, then that would be the responsibility of the owner to retrofit to be in compliance. If it's a building that wasn't covered, which could mean it doesn't have four units in it, it could be a multilevel townhouses or could have been built prior to March 13th, 1991. The person who made the request would have to pay for the alteration. So if 38 you had a clubhouse on the development, and it was first built in 1950, it's not going to be a covered building. If a person with a disability wants a ramp placed on the clubhouse, they would have to pay for it themselves. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. The last question for this section is how does the Fair Housing Act interface with modification denials in a historic district? >> BARBARA: That's a good one. This would be considered a reasonable accommodation request. An historical district does not automatically negate the responsibilities of following the act. So, for instance, if you are located in a historical district and you'd like to have a ramp put on, the owner of the building that you're in must work with you to make a reasonable accommodation requirement request of the historical commission that the ramp be allowed. Now, the historical commission can ask that the ram am be done in a manner that doesn't distract from the historical features, but they cannot deny the ramp. And the other thing, too, is you need to determine that something truly has been designated as historical. Just because something is 100 years old, doesn't necessarily mean it's port of a historic district. It has to be designated as that and it doesn't stop the possibility of the reasonable modification or accommodation going 39 through. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. That's all the questions for now. If you want to go on to your next section. >> BARBARA: I'll go on to the next section. One of the philosophies of the Fair Housing Act is its mission to affirmatively provide fair housing. What that means is they want housing providers to work towards the goal of increasing fair housing for all protected classes, and this can happen in several ways. I recently gave a talk on how to do this through becoming involved in housing and planning decisions on the local and state level for advocates. Oftentimes people react to the lack of accessible housing, particularly accessible, affordable housing after something has been built. What I want to do in this next section is talk about some pretty standard things that happen where advocates, concerned community members, can get involved at the point where a governmental entity is beginning to decide what they want to do. So although this isn't specifically fair housing, it's under the umbrella of fair housing because it pushes the concept of fair housing in making your housing decisions. So most of what I will be talking 40 about is the standard HUD funding programs that go to cities and states. And they all have certain requirements for public input. So the first one I want to talk to is probably the one that produces the most funds locally and that's the can Community Development Block Grant funds. This is not something that comes out of the fair housing division of HUD. It comes out of its community development divisions, but it has fair housing activities within it. In order to receive those funds, a five-year plan has to be developed where the community identifies what its housing challenges are, what it's present housing picture looks like and suggests ways that they can go to further their housing goals and how they are about to do that. Some of this is statistical. You'll always see they'll go on whatever the latest U.S. census figures are and say we have X. number of people with disabilities who live in this community and we have X. number of accessible units. So we're either okay or we're not meeting the need or whatever. I always tell advocates that while the Census Bureau figures are accurate based on who submitted the surveys, they are not accurate in terms of really representing how many people with disabilities live in the community. What they do reflect is how many people 41 with disabilities who have a service need live in the community? So there is going to be a big difference. So it's important for advocates to be working with their local cities and towns to say, you know, that number is limited. This is approximately, you know, how many people -- 20 percent of the people who live in this community are people with disabilities. You only have X. amount of accessible units. You only have X. amount of accessible, affordable units, it's not meeting the goal. When they do these five-year plans, there is a process of public meetings that are held. Usually people are notified one of two ways. There sals a notice in the local newspaper and they need to maintain a contact list of which there shoes be local disability advocacy groups on that list being told what stage they are at. Eel ea have an open meetings act just to have people come forward and identify what the housing needs are of the community. Then they'll have a follow-up public meeting usually a couple of months down the road where they release a draft of the plan based on what they heard in the public hearings, what they've received in written comments and then they finalize a report that goes to HUD which says this is what we're doing with our community block grant funds. So the key as advocates is 42 to get involved early on that one so you can clearly say we have several people who are stuck in institutions and nursing homes and they are ready to come back into the community but we don't have the types of units that are out there. So please use your community development block grants to address the housing needs of that population. the HOME program, another HUD funded program uses pretty much the same system where it will determine what it wants to do with its housing funds based on the needs of the community. Another program is the low income housing tax credit -- very popular program with developers. In order for a developer to apply for that, they have to be found to be eligible under a state developed qualifications allotment -- I'm sorry -- allocation plan. Usually referred to as a QA P. What that plan does is says that in order to apply for these tax credits, you have to follow the following conditions. If you can't do that, then you Captain can't apply for the tax credits. One of the standard regulations under the tax credit program from HUD is that any developer who has an outstanding fair housing complaint cannot be allotted tax credits. They also can lose any tax credits that Enterprise Fund been granted to them in the past if they are found in violation of 43 the Fair Housing Act. So it's very important that you establish a link with your local communities and your state housing offices to let them know whether there are developers in your community that you feel are engaging in noncompliant behavior. the state or the community -- I'm sorry -- the state that's developing a QAP can develop their own specifications in terms of what type of housing might get priority. Massachusetts just did something very interesting in that they put into the QAP that the developer has to respond to the housing needs of diverse populations and specified elders and persons with disabilities, and that they could not use a housing model that would exclude any of the protected fair housing classes. So, for instance, a developer who wanted to use the tax credit to build just multi-family townhouses and no elevators would not in Massachusetts be qualified for the tax credit because they didn't address the different population needs. Some QAP's in some states are now beginning to request or advise that universal design or visit ability should be included in it. So the QAP is developed similar to the Community Development Block Grant in response to what the community is saying they need. So you need to be on the contact list for your executive office of housing and 44 community development. It's called different things in different states, so that you can receive the draft copy of the QAP and what needs to be addressed and what doesn't. It can be a tremendous amount of housing that comes out of those programs so you need to say early what's in them. One of the programs that I always tell people they should be monitoring very closely is another HUD funded program that is very well intentioned, but the execution sometimes may create problems and that's the hope 6 program. Hope 6 is set up as a replacement program -- a unit replacement program for public housing authorities. Its goal is to get rid of the large, old fashioned big box types of public housing authority buildings and develop more of a neighborhood type of approach. So oftentimes you see the big box things torn down and you might see duplexes or triplexes that are put in its place or a development of maybe four units Oregon more in several buildings. A lot of hope 6 has done multilevel units, they've done townhouses. So the design the friendlier looking and more neighborly like and actually encouraged the people to get to know each other. the two parts of it that need to be reviewed is this -- there is more than two. One is that it's not a 45 unit for unit replacement. They may tear down a building that had 300 units and only replace it with 200 units. So you lose some public funded units that way. The second part is that they are mixed income because part of this whole concept of creating a new neighborhood type of development is to be able to get rid of poverty concentrations. So you'll see people in some of these units that are little higher in income than you normally would. So you'd lose some affordability that way. and then there is the issue of the townhouses. It is a design that's very, very popular in hope 6 because it's federally funded, they are required to do 5 percent of their units to be accessible for persons with physical disabilities and 2 percent to be accessible for people with sensory disabilities because it triggers Section 504, but it doesn't require a lot -- it's not going to require a fair housing coverage because they are all multilevel units without elevators. So you lose a great deal of accessibility sometimes in these hope 6 projects. It's important to see when the public housing authority is applying for the hope 6 funds. There has to be a public hearing and you need to weigh in on it to find out if you're going to be losing affordable accessible units by this hope 6. Is the housing 46 authority seeking to do this in another area of town to replace those units somehow. You need to be part of that. The last section is talking about public housing. All public housing authorities that receive HUD funding very similar to Community Development Block Grant and again they are supposed to be having a hearing with the public where the public is discussing what type of housing is needed and they prepare a draft plan. The public again reacts to it about whether it's going to meet the needs of the public housing tenants and then it goes to HUD for approval. So being involved in that process is extremely important. One last thing about all this stuff, and I know this is not the most exciting thing, when organizations, public housing authorities, state executive offices or municipal submit these five-year plans under the Community Development Block Grant or to the public housing, they have to do something which is called an AI. And what that really means is an analysis of impediments to fair house. They are supposed to be identifying how the town, city, state, public housing authority is serving the needs of all the protected classes under the Fair Housing Act. So are they having racial concentrations geographically in some of the public housing authorities or in some of the 47 neighborhoods? How are they addressing the needs of families who have small children? Are they providing accessible, affordable housing in sufficient numbers to elders and persons with disabilities. They have to give a picture of what's really happening. Then they identify if there were any barriers that are out there. So a common one under A. I. or a person with disabilities is if you say that in sufficient numbers of accessible, affordable housing are being built. Or even something such as public attitude towards people with disabilities have prevented many of them from finding appropriate rental situations. Once that's all identified, they then have to determine how they're going to address those barriers. They can, for instance, say if there is a general public attitude toward people with disabilities which is having a neglect Tim impact on them finding housing, they can use the Community Development Block Grant to fund local disability organizations, fair housing organizations to do public outreach and education campaigns. They can fund policy -- civil rights policy analyst work to be done. It's very, very flexible, but they need to do this as part of the AI and then every year when they turn in the annual reports, they have to record what type of progress they are making. So it is absolutely 48 essential that disability advocates get involved in this process. I've seen some AI's where architects have talked about barrier to fair housing being code enforcement. I've even called code enforcement or lack of knowledge of fair housing access standards -- it's pretty wide open. So I think people should be coming very involved with that sort of process. It's not the most exciting thing to do, but sometimes it can be the most beneficial because you guys are the experts on this. You know what needs to be done in the communities. And so it's a way of guaranteeing that although there is limited dollars out there, that those limited dollars used efficiently and effectively for people with disabilities. So I'll take whatever questions we have right now. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. A listener asked is maintenance of parking access aisles covered? For example, an access aisle that has significant potholes making it very difficult or impossible for a person using a wheelchair or a Walker to access? >> BARBARA: Yes. The maintenance of the access aisles for any accessible feature is considered part of the responsibility of the management accessibility requirements. So if there are potholes, the management must keep those up. If ramps, for 49 instance, were disability not as is a reasonable modification, but if they were built as part of the development, management must make sure that those are properly maintained. The same thing for accessible parking spaces, the frequent complaint is when the snow piles are piling out of a parking lot, I don't know why this happens, but nine times out of ten they push the snow into the accessible parking spaces. That would be considered a violation because they haven't maintained the viability of space because they pushed the snow there. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, next listener states: I live in Florida. I'm concerned with the housing authority's and the state's unwillingness to include persons with disabilities in housing. In the Center for Public Housing, an analysis of resources for serving persons with disabilities report, it has a table of Section 8 voucher distribution by each -- it says PHA. >> BARBARA: That's public housing authority. >> TAJAUNA: In the state. For example, in Daytona Beach, Florida, their housing authority distributed 322 Section 8 vouchers. Out of those 322 vouchers, zero went to persons with disabilities. How can this be fixed and who overseas housing authorities 50 to punish them in unequal distribution? >> BARBARA: Okay, the first step is to notify your HUD office. HUD is the funder of Section 8 vouchers and if there is a disparity in how vouchers are being distributed, for instance, if you're pointing out that none are going to people with disabilities, HUD needs to be notified of that and the public housing authority should be asked why that's happening. Where are they doing their outreach, for instance? Are they including disability groups in their outreach efforts? How do they advertise their services? You know, what are they supposed to do? When someone administers a Section 8 program, whether it's a public housing authority or it's a private nonprofit that has some control, they have to have an affirmative fair marketing plan, which demonstrates how they're doing outreach to all the protected classes. So that HUD is responsible for overseeing this. So for this particular caller, I definitely would be calling the local HUD office and asking to speak to their Section 8 director on this one. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. The next question, what are the requirements for emergency evacuation for people with disabilities for the landlord or housing development? Are they required to have stair chairs for multilevel units, lofts, apartments, high-rises, et 51 cetera? >> BARBARA: Under federal fair housing there are no requirements around emergency evacuation; however, if a housing project, housing provider is providing evacuation services somehow, then they would have to provide something of equal value. If they are not, the person with the disability can make a reasonable accommodation or modification request depending on what they are actually asking for. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. The next listener wants to know what are the penalties for both builders and governmental entities if they don't adequately address the needs of people with disabilities under the programs you've been speaking about? >> BARBARA: Well, there is two levels. Let me first talk about what would happen to a government entity such as a public housing authority. Failing to provide the fair housing requirements to be in adherence with them, either the design or construction or just the general serving of populations can result in problems with your other funding sources from HUD, similar to Section 504. And the other thing to remember is that in government-funded development, Section 504 kicks in as well. So if there is a public housing authority that's not serving persons with 52 disabilities, what will happen is there will be a Section 504 investigation done by HUD. And depending on the outcome, their funding could be severely affected. Some housing authorities due to mismanagement and fair housing issues sometimes have been put into receivership. So it can start with an individual filing a complaint or an organization filing a fair housing complaint alleging that an entity, a government entity is not properly serving a particular population. Now, when you're talking about private developers or an architect or builder or contractor who didn't billed according to the requirements of the act or in the case of a developer if they have policies and practices that are in violation of the act, for instance, selection criteria or whatever, the individual can file a complaint with the HUD fair housing equal opportunity office or the sites I discussed before. And HUD has all these numbers on these website which is www.HUD.gov. If found at fault, there can be some pretty hefty fines that can be levied against the offending party as well as it's not common, but there have been occasions where personal damages have been levied against them as well, and in addition to that, if it's a case of design and construction, they have to assume the cost of the retrofitting and oftentimes have to pay all legal costs. 53 So it can be quite expensive. HUD and the Department of Justice just settled a sexual discrimination case and I think it resulted in $2.5 million that the developer had to pay out. So we can be very costly -- never mind the morale costs you pay by violating the act, but it can be quite costly if is one violates the fact. The issue is that people have to file complaints. It is a very complaint driven system. And last time I checked the number of complaints that HUD and it says receiving on disability issues has risen to their second largest category. Having said that, I will tell you that there is not enough complaints that are being filed. >> TAJAUNA: Interesting. All right, we have the last two questions and the next to the last is, Ms. Chandler, is a government subsidized apartment complex 515 HUD funded required to pay for a reasonable modification of installing a roll in shower in a designated, accessible unit? The requesting party is disabled in a wheelchair full time and on a fixed income. I know the properties are required to maintain a separate reserve account. Can the cost of the roll in shower be paid for out of this account? >> BARBARA: Okay, if this is a directly federally subsidized building, then this is going to be 54 viewed not under fair housing. It's better off viewed under Section 504 because under Section 504, reasonable accommodations incorporates physical alterations and the cost is assumed by the housing provider. And it doesn't matter where they get the money from. It can be from the reserve account. They can divert it from their capital budget. They can get it wherever they can get it. They can't claim financial hardship. So the request has to be made and it's really up to them to determine where the funds can come from. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, and then our last question is actually a two part question. And the first part asks how is the fair housing act fairing in terms of court challenges? How is it strengthened by such challenges and how is it weakened? The second part asks what was used as a basis for deriving the Fair Housing Act? What aspects of rehabilitation architecture/universal design were woven into it. What role did it play in the formulation of ADAAG and later into terms of ADA itself? >> BARBARA: Okay. I can write a term paper on this one but let me give it my best shot on it. Give plea the first part again. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, how is the Fair Housing Act fairing in terms of court challenges? How 55 is it strengthened by such challenges? How is it weakened? >> BARBARA: It's an uneven picture right now because the circuit courts have had a certain amount of inconsistency on some of the fair housing divisions. In some areas we've been doing quite well where they have been very strongly enforcing the design and construction requirements. There have been a few cases -- I want to say on assisted animal cases that I think the act has been strengthened by a lot of the court cases. The only thing that I think is questionable out of the courts on assistive animals is the question of dangerous breeds. Some courts have ruled that a dangerous breed such as using an animal -- a Rottweiler or pit bull or assistive animal could endanger other tenants and therefore the breed of the animal could be restricted although the right to have an animal could not. So the there have been decisions like those. There was a re sent case that challenged the enforce built of the safe harbors themselves. It's important to remember that the safe harbors are not mandatory standards, they are voluntary standards. The act is mandatory. You've got to have the seven requirements I said earlier. The safe harbors, the eight safe harbors are voluntary standards on how you do 56 that. Most courts have treated them -- particularly the Fair Housing Act guidelines -- as if they were a mandatory standard. That's been very, very good over the years but there was a recent court decision that actually said that the Fair Housing Act Guidelines did not have the mandatory enforcement of regulation and therefore is case was lost. That's a few weeks ago. It might even be a month. So there is going to be an appeal on that case and I would say that one I'm pretty curious on how that's going to come out. But I say for the most part there has been stepped up enforcement over the last few years by HUD and the Department of Justice. There have been some significant court cases that have been won. So as much as you can say under this present administration, we're doing well. The second one about where does the fair housing actually come out of -- let me sort of split that in to two different waste. The civil rights portion of the act personality of the Fair Housing Act of 1988 actually comes out of the act of '68. It's the same concept that persons should not be discriminated against because of their membership in a particular socioeconomic, racial disability class. So that's where it comes from. The other piece about the physical accessibility -- actually that goes back to the architectural barriers 57 act which was the very first sort of design and construction standards that the government -- federal government ever issued. And there is an actual flow to some of this. Section 504 came after the Architectural Barriers Act and strengthen some of the provisions. The Fair Housing Act borrows from both but then expands itself; and the ADA I think grows out of a lot of different things. Part of it is the same civil rights field to the Americans with Disabilities Act that you have for fair housing. I think the ADAAG standards that ADA uses are stronger in some instances than fair housing. There is a lot of things that are very common to both. So there is definitely lack of a better term a family relationship between all of those. Universal design, that's a whole different baby. The organization -- I work for Adaptive Environments, that is our major push. Universal design is a concept that assists people having to adapt to architecture or any kind of design. The design adapts to people. So in the idea of housing, it would be housing that you can put in place if you become disabled that you're not forced to move out. It basically looks at the regulations that we've always had under fair housing and ADA and says that's nice, but it's not enough. And it doesn't address the changes in people's lives that they 58 need to be able to cope with as things happen. So universal design is a whole other issue and while some of it comes from the codes, it just goes way beyond that. And there was a third part? >> TAJAUNA: No, I think you pretty much answered everything. The last part that he asks was what role did it play in the formulation of ADAAG and later in terms of the ADA itself? >> BARBARA: Well, I think it's a pretty typical civil rights history. Once you start with one area of getting civil rights, you begin to realize there are other areas that you need to have equal types of protection. So it's not exactly a chicken and an egg argument, but it's close to it. I think the ADA takes a lot of the fair housing concepts, particularly the equal access and opportunity philosophy and the affirmatively furthering of civil rights. I think it incorporates the spirit of that. ADAAG, I think, benefited from fair housing regulations, design and construction requirements, sort of being around for a few years to see what works, what doesn't work; and it's important to remember on any type of access codes civil rights, they are all the result of political discussion and compromise. So sometimes one act or regulation benefits from the fact that something 59 didn't work prior to it. So you can correct it or something that they didn't really think was going to work well actually did work well. So that would be sort of the tenuous connection between them all. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. Lust answer to a very long question. Barbara, thank you very much. That's all the time we have for today's webcast. So I appreciate all of the information that you have given us about fair housing and all of the questions that you have answered. I hope all of you listening have enjoyed and learned from today's webcast. Also note this webcast will be archived on ILRU's website which you can find by visiting www.ilru.org. I would like to acknowledge the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, NIDRR, who funds your host for today's program, the Disability Law Resource Project. I would also like to thank the in-house staff of ILRU who without their efforts this webcast would not be possible. They include: Marj Gordon, Sharon Finney, Dawn Heinsohn, Vinh Nguyen, Maria December Bosque as well as the technical expertise provided by Rob Dickehuth and our realtime captioner Marie Bryant. I encourage anyone with questions on the Americans with Disabilities Act to call the toll free number at 1-800-949-4232. If you have questions on fair 60 housing, please call fair housing. Again, thank you for joining us and we hope you will join us again next Wednesday, September 27th at 2:00 p.m. central time just how accessible is your business, an ever have overview of the ADA on small business owners. It will be presented by Aaron McCullough here in our office. Thank all of you for listening and we hope that you'll join us again next Wednesday. Bye-bye.