[nagdu] Discrimination in Campus Housing

[Marion Gwizdala]

Hannah,
    Student housing is covered by the Fair Housing Act, not the Americans 
with Disabilities Act. Under the FHA, you must request a reasonable 
accommodation from the housing provider. My recommendation is to write a 
letter to the campus housing office stating that you are blind, your dog has 
been trained to guide you, and that you are requesting a reasonable 
accommodation under the Fair Housing Act. Campus housing is a hot topic with 
the Department of Justice and Housing & Urban Development. I have attached a 
joint statement for your information. If you have any further issues, feel 
free to get in touch with me. My contact information is below my signature.
Fraternaly yours,
 iMarion Gwizdala, President
National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU)
National Federation of the Blind
813-626-2789
President at NAGDU.ORG
HTTP://WWW.NAGDU.ORG


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hannah Chadwick" <sparklylicious at gmail.com>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 9:07 PM
Subject: [nagdu] Discrimination?


> Hi all,
> I am going to attend UC Davis in the fall. I called the housing department
> today to ask a few questions about the accessibility, and I thought it was
> important to bring up the fact that I have a guide dog. For some reason 
> this
> caused a disturbance, and I was told that the manager of housing would get
> back to me in about an hour since she was at lunch; she however did not 
> get
> back to me until almost five and I had called at 12. When the manager 
> called
> me back, she told me that I would not be able to live in the residential
> halls, and when I asked why this is the case, she replied with, "just
> because we are not allowed to have dogs", and referred me to the 
> disability
> center. I told her that guide dogs are allowed in all public areas and 
> since
> student dorms are public, then I would be allowed to live in any dorm of 
> my
> choosing. She again told me to contact the disability center, and also
> shared with me that there are other housing options such as apartments on
> campus. By then it was practically 5 and of course the dsc was closed so 
> I'm
> going to have to call them on Monday.
> Thoughts, advice, suggestions?
> Hannah
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nagdu mailing list
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> nagdu:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/blind411%40verizon.net 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: HUD  DOJ Joint Statement.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 104960 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nagdu_nfbnet.org/attachments/20120428/5ff6340d/attachment.doc>