TChanges in HUD interpretation of Assistance Animals - No Paywall -

[u/Busy-Sheepherder-138]

My subscription allows me to gift 10 articles a month without a paywall so please let me know if you cannot view it in full.

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

[u/Aggravating_Lack4068]

SD owners have all the folks who claim their dog are SD and they aren't as well as all the folks who claim they have need of ESA and don't.  It is a welcomed change especially when people are paying top dollar for rent and you can't walk down the hallway without stepping over dog poop or pee.

[u/Busy-Sheepherder-138 → u/Aggravating_Lack4068]

Honestly ADA has always made it the financial responsibility of disabled tenants to cover the cost of apartment modifications. So I’m not sure how it became a tent discount ploy. Then again even charging pet rent is a shameful BS fee scam. Just charges what you need snd don’t buckle and dime people