2-22 Introduction

• A. As discussed in Paragraph 2-5 above, the Fair Housing Act establishes specific nondiscrimination and accessibility requirements for housing sold and rented in the United States for nearly all housing, regardless of whether the housing receives any federal financial assistance.

• B. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities and establishes accessibility requirements by recipients of federal financial assistance in both housing and nonhousing programs. Although there is significant overlap between the Fair Housing Act nondiscrimination requirements with respect to disability and Section 504, Section 504 imposes additional broader obligations on recipients of federal financial assistance. Properties covered by this handbook are subject to the requirements of Section 504 and therefore, owners of such properties have

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Subsection 1: Overview and General Requirements

affirmative obligations to establish and implement nondiscrimination policies and to ensure required accessibility to persons with disabilities.

• C. Section 504 establishes certain affirmative accessibility standards that owners must meet regardless of whether or not an applicant or tenant has made an individual request for a reasonable accommodation. (For information on reasonable accommodations, refer to Subsection 4 of this section.)

  1. The owner’s obligations include making the property physically accessible as well as operating and administering the property to enable persons with disabilities to have equal access to participate in the program.

  2. This means not only that units and common areas must be physically accessible, but that owners also must ensure effective communications with applicants, tenants, and the public, and that policies regarding how the property is operated do not adversely affect applicants, tenants, and the public.

  3. Under both the Fair Housing Act and Section 504, housing providers are obligated to provide reasonable accommodations to allow applicants with disabilities to meet the requirements of tenancy. The requirement to provide a reasonable accommodation is present at all times throughout the tenancy of a person with disabilities, including during lease enforcement. See discussion in Subsection 4.

  4. In all discussions of accessibility under Section 504, a unit cannot be considered fully accessible unless it meets the requirements of the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards, 24 CFR 8.32. Note that UFAS does not consider a unit to be fully accessible if it is not on an accessible route.

• D. This section discusses how Section 504 and the disability/accessibility provisions of the Fair Housing Act apply to housing, and it addresses situations where both laws apply. In this respect, where a property is subject to more than one law or nondiscrimination or accessibility standard, it is necessary to comply with all applicable requirements. In some cases, it may be possible to do this by complying with the stricter requirement. Section 504 and the Fair Housing Act overlap, but in many ways Section 504 is the more stringent of the two.

• E. For purposes of this section, the requirements and procedures described refer to Section 504, unless the Fair Housing Act is specifically referenced.

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• F. This section continues with an overview of key requirements regarding nondiscrimination and accessibility and then covers the following topics in more detail.

  1. Subsection 2: Policies and Procedures to Ensure Nondiscrimination and Promote Accessibility.

  2. Subsection 3: Physical Accessibility.

  3. Subsection 4: Reasonable Accommodations.

  4. Subsection 5: Additional Fair Housing Act Requirements.