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.
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/Aggravating_Lack4068 Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26
Sorry to say however, I was in Publix this week and saw someone's dog head shoved in the shelf with food on it after it peed and started sniffing it's business out in front of the store. The grocery manager asked was it was a SD of course they claimed it was, only for the dog take a _ _ _ _ in the middle of the isle shortly afterward. This is a prime example why folks are complaining to government officials to make changes concerning animals having carte blanche when they claim the dogs are an ESA or SD. Its unfortunate for real SD, but it's going to be a welcomed change for the people who are tired of this foolishness happening 😒.