[nabs-l] Accessibility of apartment documents

Sun Apr 24 17:28:42 UTC 2016

Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback thus far  I've actually never been in a
situation where I've needed to pay rent before, so this is all new to
me.  Though I did have an apartment my sophomore year and have lived
in my fraternity's house for the past 2 school years, housing payments
were lumped in with my tuition so I didn't exactly get the "on your
own in an apartment with bills to pay" experience.

I did talk to the leasing agent about how to pay the rent (there is an
online payment option but you can also write checks), and getting
email or text notifications/phone calls about things like maintenance
work so I can be forewarned in an accessible way.  Thankfully they are
willing at least for now to do that.  I also do have the KNFB reader,
so I could make use of it as has been suggested.  From other friends I
have who live in apartments I heard that the lease was a considerably
larger document for them, which is why I was concerned primarily about
having it in an accessible format.  If it is usually 4-5 pages or
less, then I'm much less worried about it.

Any other suggestions/tips/things I should be thinking about would be
appreciated.  I'm submitting my application tomorrow.

On 4/23/16, Katie Wang via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi Kaiti,
>
> I agree with Anna about the lease. While it is an important document
> that you certainly want to keep on hand, it is not something you will
> need to refer to often if everything goes well. I would suggest
> bringing a trusted sighted person to the lease signing and, if you
> have a scanner and an OCR program at home, you can simply bring the
> paper copy home with you and convert it into electronic format for
> your own records (because the lease is not a form that you need to
> fill out, it does not matter if the formatting gets altered in the
> scanning process). With regard to paying rent, I would highly
> recommend utilizing the on-line payment services of your bank. Most
> major banks (e.g., Chase, Bank of America) allows you to send a
> payment to an individual: All you need to do is enter the name and
> address of the recipient, along with any identifying information
> (e.g., your name and apartment number) and a dollar amount, and the
> bank will send a check on your behalf using funds from your checking
> account. I'm guessing that you might already know this from previous
> rent-paying experience but thought I would share the tip just in case.
> Hope this helps!
>
> Katie
>
>
> On 4/23/16, Anna via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Kaiti,
>> I am not sure of the specific legal regulations and such, but I thought I
>> would share with you what I do know and what I thought of when reading
>> your
>> email.
>> 1. Explain to your landlord, manager, etc accessible ways of giving you
>> information and making the facility equally accessible to you.  This
>> gives
>> them the opportunity to do their best to accomodate you up front.
>> 2.  Leases are not all that long, maybe 3 or 4 pages and they are pretty
>> straightforward.  Their format is typically very different than
>> applications
>> because the lease is more of a regular text document like with sentences
>> and
>> paragraphs and such whereas an application has lines and boxes to fill in
>> information.  So scanning a lease should be different.  An option would
>> be
>> to get the paper copy and use the KNFB reader, or some sort of scanning
>> software to save it to your computer or braille display or whatever.
>> Using
>> these methods you would have your electronic version and the paper copy
>> for
>> future reference and to keep in your records. When you initially go over
>> the
>> lease, I personally always want someone I trust to come along as my
>> reader.
>> Usually you go over the lease and sign it with the landlord or manager
>> before moving in, and if you just have them read it to you, you don't
>> know
>> for sure if they are skipping anything or something like that.  I would
>> bring a reader so that your trusted reader can read through it with you
>> and
>> your landlord and you can stop and ask questions to the landlord or
>> manager
>> as they arise.
>> 3. Although you should always keep your lease in your records until you
>> are
>> long gone from the place, you most likely won't ever need that document
>> ever
>> again.  So going over with the reader before you move in should be
>> enough.
>> If for some unusual reason you needed to access it again, you could
>> always
>> use a reader again, if you did only have the paper version.
>> 4. Although you obviously have the right to fight for accessibility in
>> relation to your lease.  The lease would be the least of my worries.
>> Things
>> that I would be more concerned about are, how do they require tenants to
>> pay
>> rent?  Some companies require tenants to pay online, and this may or may
>> not
>> be accessible.  Or even if they don't require online payment, I would
>> want
>> to make sure that I had equal access as far as paying rent.  Can you write
>> a
>> check?  Do you have to use some other form? Etc.
>> To me, that would be a bigger issue.
>> 5. It seems from your email like they probably are trying to be
>> accommodating but don't really get how to do that.  I'm sure you know to
>> do
>> this, but I just always start having a dialogue with them from the
>> beginning
>> about accessibility, accommodations, ADA, etc.  nothing major, just
>> little
>> tips here and there so they understand that it is something they need to
>> keep in mind.  They can't put a notice on you door saying there going to
>> have someone come spray for bugs the next day.  If you can't read print,
>> that obviously won't work.  These are things they need to think about.
>> So
>> sn ongoing dialogue is something I find to be very useful with people
>> that
>> are trying to be accommodating but don't know how.
>>
>> Those are my thoughts.  I hope that helps a little bit.
>>
>> Anna E Givens
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 22, 2016, at 9:12 PM, Kaiti Shelton via nabs-l
>>> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I'll be moving into my first big kid apartment (on my own with no
>>> roommates) this August.  I met with one of the realty agents that
>>> works for the apartment company today and really like what I saw in
>>> the viewing.  It looks like it will be a pretty good living situation,
>>> and although I've enjoyed having roommates I'm looking forward to
>>> having a little more control over my space (No more randomly moving
>>> things in the fridge, unexpected changes in the thermostat, etc).
>>>
>>> I'm a little concerned about finding out what my accessibility-related
>>> rights are.  This is new for me and I am doing research on my own, but
>>> I thought turning here would also be useful.  I was a little
>>> disheartened when I found the company didn't have an electronic way
>>> for me to complete the apartment application.  The agent was nice
>>> enough to fill out most of it with me and was amenable to having my
>>> parents scan the completed copy as a PDF and email in their co-signer
>>> portion since they're in a different city, but as far as me filling it
>>> out in an accessible format she didn't seem to know of a way to make
>>> it work without messing up the formatting of the application form.
>>> I'm kind of feeling "whatever" about it at this point because the form
>>> was pretty short and painless/not necessarily worth a huge fuss over
>>> accessibility, but I am more concerned with making sure I get an
>>> accessible copy of the contract/lease so I can reference it if
>>> necessary while I am in the property.  I understand that having
>>> independent access to this kind of documentation is very important,
>>> and want to make sure I start working with the company in advance if
>>> necessary.
>>>
>>> My questions are: If the company doesn't already have an electronic
>>> copy of the lease how, exactly, would they be required to share it
>>> with me in a format I can use?  What would be acceptable options to
>>> tell them if they have no clue?  If they decide to send it somewhere
>>> else to be brailled would that come out of their pocket or my own?
>>>
>>> Of course, I recognize that they could/should have a scanner somewhere
>>> in their offices, and therefore scanning the lease and making an
>>> accessible copy wouldn't be too terribly hard.  However, I'm not sure
>>> who's responsibility it would be and am a little skeptical of that
>>> working out if they were unable to make the application available to
>>> me in a format I can use.  I really don't mind the application, but I
>>> honestly don't want to sit down with a reader and go through a 60-plus
>>> page document if I can help it.  2 pages are one thing, ut from what I
>>> understand leases are much longer.
>>>
>>> Any tips or bits of knowledge anyone could pass on would be appreciated.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Kaiti Shelton
>>> University of Dayton-Music Therapy
>>> "You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back!"
>>>
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-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton-Music Therapy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students 2013-Present
Secretary, The National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts
Division 2015-2016

"You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back!"