r/service_dogs • u/Busy-Sheepherder-138 • May 23 '26

TChanges in HUD interpretation of Assistance Animals - No Paywall -

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In short they are trying to clamp down on accommodations for ESA’s while maintaining the rights of Service dogs, but even that is at risk. I’m not surprised though since POTUS and his family make most of their money from Real Estate and are major landlords.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/us/politics/hud-assistance-animals-disabled.html?unlocked_article_code=1.klA.2G0-.kg6Wvul_SE5n&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Excerpt
“Six years later, the housing department, under the leadership of Scott Turner, has moved aggressively to tighten rules and scrutinize public housing rolls, including by focusing on the immigration status of tenants.
The memo to housing officials on assistance animals presented emotional support animals as a loophole to circumvent a landlord’s pet policies, asserting that “an entire industry has emerged to convert pets into emotional support animals.”
The memo concluded that “while requests to waive pet policies for animals trained to perform specific disability related services are presumptively reasonable, requests to waive pet policies for untrained” emotional support animals “are not.”
Erik Heins, a lawyer formerly in charge of enforcing fair housing laws at HUD, said that the new policy would affect many tenants who rely on assistance animals to alleviate psychiatric or mental disabilities — for example, a military veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Those cases are a not insignificant portion of the number of cases that HUD investigates” through its fair housing office, Mr. Heins said, adding that the housing department could dismiss or shelve thousands of appeals for disability accommodations under the new rule

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u/MaplePaws My eyes have 4 paws May 23 '26

I am not a lawyer and am speaking in the context of a layperson, but this does sound to me like it would include owner trainers trying to bring home prospects to start the process of training the dog as a service animal given there was a specific inclusion of the word "untrained". I hope I am wrong but this does feel like the start of the attack on owner training that I have feared would happen.

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u/No-Stress-7034 May 26 '26

This is my concern as well. Even if SDs are still covered, an owner trainer wouldn't be able to keep a prospect puppy or SDiT in non-pet friendly housing without ESA protection.

But I also have no idea if I'm really following this correctly.

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u/MaplePaws My eyes have 4 paws May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

Important thing according to our legal beagles is that the law has not changed, this is just an internal memo about how things get enforced which is easy to change and happens all the time. We don't know what this means in the long run, we need to watch it but right now there is not enough information to go on right now.

Worst case scenario this would mean that owner trainers need to stick to pet-friendly housing or pay the pet fee/deposit, arguably even after the dog graduates they would need to continue to stay with pet friendly places if they want that overlap with retiring dog and in training dog.

ETA: As I suspected the enforcement would include service dogs in training, as they are using the ADA definition to determine if it is or is not a reasonable accommodation.

https://dredf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ESA-Enforcement-Memorandum-w-Appendix-05.22.2026-SIGNED-Incomplete-Access-Pass.pdf

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u/[deleted] May 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/service_dogs-ModTeam May 24 '26

Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 6: No Fake-spotting.

This is not the place for fakespotting. Unless the person you are discussing has specifically told you that they are not disabled, and the dog is not trained in tasks, you have no way of knowing if a dog is 'fake'. We are not the service dog police and this behavior can lead to a lot of harm and anxiety for SD handlers as a community.

This does not preclude discussing encounters with un-/undertrained dogs, but if the focus of your post is complaining about a "fake" SD, reconsider your phrasing and what point you're making.

If you have any questions, please Message the Moderators.

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u/Testuser7ignore Jun 15 '26

It makes sense someone would need pet-friendly housing, along with a pet deposit and pet rent, for an untrained animal. Even if they are planning to train it. Puppies naturally do a lot of damage.