"Laws in America require employers, schools, landlords, as well as governments to make services accessible to persons with disabilities through the provision of reasonable accommodations or modifications."
The year of 1990 in America found the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) being signed into law as Justin Dart watched. Justin was given a pen that was used to sign this incredibly important piece of legislation, a symbolic item representing the efforts of countless People with Disabilities across the nation. The ADA is considered by many to be the most important civil rights law since Title 504. It has support from across this nation's largest minority population - People with Disabilities, as well as supporters and advocates.
Truly we are still a nation of prejudice, segregation, and harassment and we are also a nation of laws and rights. Fortunately, federal and state agencies work to apply the law to remedy injustice, and to develop administrative rules and remedies to assure that everyone can be protected. The rights persons with disabilities have to include equality before the law, freedom of speech, respect for privacy, the right to both marriage and family, the right to education, the right to health, and much more. The year 2006 found the United Nations drafting the CRPD in recognition of the difficulty and overlapping barriers persons with disabilities face. The United States of America signed the CRPD in the year 2009, although it has not yet ratified the Convention.
Persons with Disabilities as a minority population in America experience an increased risk of becoming victims of violent crime. Women, especially with disabilities, experience a high rate of sexual harassment, assault, and domestic violence. Consent is crucial when any person engages in sexual activity, but it plays an even bigger, and potentially more complicated role when someone has a disability. Some disabilities may make it difficult to communicate consent to participate in sexual activity, and perpetrators may take advantage of this.The perpetrator may use this power to threaten, coerce, or force someone into non-consensual sex or sexual activities. An abuser may take away access to the tools a person with a disability uses to communicate, such as a computer or phone. People with disabilities may be less likely to be taken seriously when they make a report of sexual assault or abuse. They may also face challenges in accessing services to make a report in the first place. Many complaints are unreported due to the lack of confidence from the justice system and the fear of reprisal from the perpetrator.
Housing discrimination related to persons with disabilities in America is rampant. There is precious little in the way of housing that is accessible, affordable or designed with persons with disabilities in mind. One study found that greater than half of all persons with disabilities in America faced housing inquiry discrimination compared to nondisabled persons seeking similar housing. Persons with disabilities receive less encouragement to pursue rental agreements and are less likely to be offered an application than non-disabled renters.
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 together with the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, is called the Fair Housing Act. the Fair Housing Act also deals with general prohibitions against discrimination based on disability in the sale or rental of most housing, reasonable accommodations in a housing provider’s rules and policies, and reasonable modifications of an apartment, due to a person’s disability. Furthermore, besides discrimination based on disability, the Fair Housing Act prohibits discriminatory housing practices based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, and/or national origin. "The Act also prohibits housing providers from refusing residency to persons with disabilities, or placing conditions on their residency, because those persons may require reasonable accommodations".
HUD, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, has begun to apply the Fair Housing Act (FHA) to protect disabled tenants, and others in classes protected by the FHA, from harassment. Harassment is a legal term which includes behavior that is commonly called bullying. Bullying is a contagious social disease that flourishes in the absence of a legitimate social order, creates a toxic environment and an unhealthy community life, all while causing psychological and physical harm to victims. Bullying in the residential community restricts a victim’s rights as a tenant and citizen and is, therefore, a civil rights and human rights violation. Bullying has a terrible impact on victims, causing stress, emotional pain, mental disease, and physical disease. Bullying can start with housing providers who hire and fail to supervise poorly trained managers who use bullying to control staff and/or tenants; or who ignore and condone bullying. Bullying sometimes emerges as an informal system of social control when the formal system is ineffective. That happens when management is aloof and unresponsive to the needs of residents. HUD believes that additional protections should be available to all tenants of HUD subsidized housing and that the threshold for intervention ought to be lower in order to prevent all bullying in subsidized—indeed, in all—housing.
On October 21, 2015, HUD proposed a rule that would formalize and define harassment under the Fair Housing Act. This rule would recognize and protect important rights of persons covered by the Fair Housing Act in their home. And the rule would impose clear responsibility on the housing provider for any acts of harassment. In reaction to the proposed rule, many providers of housing—public, private, subsidized, affordable, or market rate—rushed to decry government intervention, reject any responsibility for tenant relations, and set their legal teams to work. (1) But while there may be a risk of legal exposure sufficient to motivate action by landlords, there are other excellent business reasons to prevent bullying and harassment.
"It is a violation of the Fair Housing Act for any person to refuse to make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford a handicapped person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling unit, including public and common use areas."
HUD can hold providers of housing, including landlords, managers, and their agents responsible for protecting tenants from harassment. With a proposed new rule, HUD seeks to prevent housing providers from making inappropriate sexual or other demands on tenants and clarifies the responsibility of the housing provider to prevent harassment that creates a hostile environment depriving tenants of their rights. Housing providers can not evade liability for harassment that takes place in their buildings.
"A person’s home should be where they feel the greatest level of comfort—not anguish and fear because of being subjected to humiliating and degrading comments,” said Gustavo Velasquez, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “Harassing a person because of their disability is not only disturbing, it is illegal.”
The year of 1990 in America found the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) being signed into law as Justin Dart watched. Justin was given a pen that was used to sign this incredibly important piece of legislation, a symbolic item representing the efforts of countless People with Disabilities across the nation. The ADA is considered by many to be the most important civil rights law since Title 504. It has support from across this nation's largest minority population - People with Disabilities, as well as supporters and advocates.
Truly we are still a nation of prejudice, segregation, and harassment and we are also a nation of laws and rights. Fortunately, federal and state agencies work to apply the law to remedy injustice, and to develop administrative rules and remedies to assure that everyone can be protected. The rights persons with disabilities have to include equality before the law, freedom of speech, respect for privacy, the right to both marriage and family, the right to education, the right to health, and much more. The year 2006 found the United Nations drafting the CRPD in recognition of the difficulty and overlapping barriers persons with disabilities face. The United States of America signed the CRPD in the year 2009, although it has not yet ratified the Convention.
Persons with Disabilities as a minority population in America experience an increased risk of becoming victims of violent crime. Women, especially with disabilities, experience a high rate of sexual harassment, assault, and domestic violence. Consent is crucial when any person engages in sexual activity, but it plays an even bigger, and potentially more complicated role when someone has a disability. Some disabilities may make it difficult to communicate consent to participate in sexual activity, and perpetrators may take advantage of this.The perpetrator may use this power to threaten, coerce, or force someone into non-consensual sex or sexual activities. An abuser may take away access to the tools a person with a disability uses to communicate, such as a computer or phone. People with disabilities may be less likely to be taken seriously when they make a report of sexual assault or abuse. They may also face challenges in accessing services to make a report in the first place. Many complaints are unreported due to the lack of confidence from the justice system and the fear of reprisal from the perpetrator.
Housing discrimination related to persons with disabilities in America is rampant. There is precious little in the way of housing that is accessible, affordable or designed with persons with disabilities in mind. One study found that greater than half of all persons with disabilities in America faced housing inquiry discrimination compared to nondisabled persons seeking similar housing. Persons with disabilities receive less encouragement to pursue rental agreements and are less likely to be offered an application than non-disabled renters.
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 together with the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, is called the Fair Housing Act. the Fair Housing Act also deals with general prohibitions against discrimination based on disability in the sale or rental of most housing, reasonable accommodations in a housing provider’s rules and policies, and reasonable modifications of an apartment, due to a person’s disability. Furthermore, besides discrimination based on disability, the Fair Housing Act prohibits discriminatory housing practices based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, and/or national origin. "The Act also prohibits housing providers from refusing residency to persons with disabilities, or placing conditions on their residency, because those persons may require reasonable accommodations".
HUD, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, has begun to apply the Fair Housing Act (FHA) to protect disabled tenants, and others in classes protected by the FHA, from harassment. Harassment is a legal term which includes behavior that is commonly called bullying. Bullying is a contagious social disease that flourishes in the absence of a legitimate social order, creates a toxic environment and an unhealthy community life, all while causing psychological and physical harm to victims. Bullying in the residential community restricts a victim’s rights as a tenant and citizen and is, therefore, a civil rights and human rights violation. Bullying has a terrible impact on victims, causing stress, emotional pain, mental disease, and physical disease. Bullying can start with housing providers who hire and fail to supervise poorly trained managers who use bullying to control staff and/or tenants; or who ignore and condone bullying. Bullying sometimes emerges as an informal system of social control when the formal system is ineffective. That happens when management is aloof and unresponsive to the needs of residents. HUD believes that additional protections should be available to all tenants of HUD subsidized housing and that the threshold for intervention ought to be lower in order to prevent all bullying in subsidized—indeed, in all—housing.
On October 21, 2015, HUD proposed a rule that would formalize and define harassment under the Fair Housing Act. This rule would recognize and protect important rights of persons covered by the Fair Housing Act in their home. And the rule would impose clear responsibility on the housing provider for any acts of harassment. In reaction to the proposed rule, many providers of housing—public, private, subsidized, affordable, or market rate—rushed to decry government intervention, reject any responsibility for tenant relations, and set their legal teams to work. (1) But while there may be a risk of legal exposure sufficient to motivate action by landlords, there are other excellent business reasons to prevent bullying and harassment.
"It is a violation of the Fair Housing Act for any person to refuse to make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford a handicapped person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling unit, including public and common use areas."
HUD can hold providers of housing, including landlords, managers, and their agents responsible for protecting tenants from harassment. With a proposed new rule, HUD seeks to prevent housing providers from making inappropriate sexual or other demands on tenants and clarifies the responsibility of the housing provider to prevent harassment that creates a hostile environment depriving tenants of their rights. Housing providers can not evade liability for harassment that takes place in their buildings.
"A person’s home should be where they feel the greatest level of comfort—not anguish and fear because of being subjected to humiliating and degrading comments,” said Gustavo Velasquez, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “Harassing a person because of their disability is not only disturbing, it is illegal.”
Persons with Disabilities in America face systemic and direct forms of discrimination. Disability harassment can take a number of forms such as insults, isolation, shunning, daily mockery, physical abuse, and disenfranchisement. Many courts in America continue to refuse consideration of disability harassment as a serious crime that is comparable to racism or sexism - something that leaves those who experience disability harassment without equal protections under the law.
Millions of Americans with Disabilities are deprived of their rights, despite legal protections related to them, due to a lack of awareness and failure to provide them with reasonable accommodations in a number of areas. Persons with disabilities in this nation continue to face considerable levels of discrimination related to employment, services, education, and housing, etc.
According to Census Brief 97-5, "About 1 in 5 Americans have some kind of disability, and 1 in 10 have a severe disability." According to the HUD, greater than forty-percent of the population of people who are homeless in America are persons with disabilities. More Than Two-Fifths Of Homeless Have Disabilities. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness. In comparison, only 6% of Americans are severely mentally ill (National Institute of Mental Health, 2009). The one-hundred and fifty page 2008, 'Annual Homeless Assessment Report,' issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, did not provide encouraging news.
- 17.7% of adults in America experienced disability
- 42.8% of sheltered, homeless adults experienced disability
- 1.3 million children who are homeless at some point every single year
Disability, in particular, mental health disabilities, can make it difficult to work enough to afford adequate housing.
Adults with disabilities living in poverty comprise 30.7% relative to the population in America that experienced poverty as a whole.
The number of persons with disabilities who are homeless is higher than the number of people who are living in poverty - something that tells everyone that people with disabilities are having a difficult time finding a place to live, or a landlord who is willing to rent to them. The disability they experience is making it less easy to accommodate them without adaptive supports.The resources people with disabilities need in order to survive in America are simply not present in the amount they need to be where housing is concerned.
Apparently, programs such as SSI and SSDI are unable to keep people with disabilities (vets) from experiencing homelessness.The average annual-payment to a person on SSI for 2009 is $6,048, while the poverty rate for a single-person household is $10,830. One has to wonder what people are supposed to eat, let alone how they are supposed to afford rent. The average annual SSI payment is approximately 44% BELOW poverty level. People with a lack of sufficient work history do not qualify for SSDI; something that is common among persons with severe mental illness or substance abuse issues who are most susceptible to deep poverty in America.
Lack of opportunity, despite a person's skills - or inability to work, make affording a place to live extremely difficult if not impossible. Achieving accessible housing with accommodations such as adaptive supports may be impossible. The Community Choice Act has never been so important as it is right now.
It suggests that unreasonable and insane fears on the parts of government leaders and the public related to the misuse of Social Security funding have kept people with justified disabilities living in deep poverty and homelessness for entirely too long - reports such as this one by the Department of Housing and Urban Development prove it.
The continued, government-enforced impoverishment of People with Disabilities in America is tantamount to the very slavery that President Obama has recently described. Now, President Trump in office - statistics prove that no matter what party has been in office, this abuse of people with disabilities in America has continued.
There has been an Equal Rights Act in America; an Americans with Disabilities Act - and still this blatant, unremitting, and completely unjustified abuse of people with disabilities continues in this nation. The government of the United States of America, in order to ensure the rights of Persons with Disabilities, has a number of different obligations. The foremost obligation in this writer's mind is the obligation to Protect the Most Vulnerable - which means the U.S. government must actively reach out to those citizens with disabilities who are most marginalized and excluded from the communities of America and face the greatest barriers to the realization of their rights.
The United States government is obliged to ensure Non-discrimination - meaning it must work to prevent discriminatory outcomes due to ability, race, gender, language, or additional factors with the goal of ensuring equity in the fulfillment of the rights of everyone in America. Our government is obliged to protect us as persons with disabilities - meaning the U.S. government must take measures to prevent individuals or third parties such as employers or civil society organizations from interfering in any way from the realization of disabled rights. Until every citizen in America experiences true equality in America; until every citizen has equal access to public buildings - America still experiences the very slavery it speaks so proudly about having abolished.
Resources and References:
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm
The Discover Human Rights Institute - www.discoverhumanrights.org
http://www.stopbullyingcoalition.org/remedy
http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/fairhousing
Quid Pro Quo and Hostile Environment Harassment and Liability for Discriminatory Housing Practices Under the Fair Housing Act; A Proposed Rule by the Housing and Urban Development Department on 10/21/2015. Federal Register Oct 21, 2015, https://federalregister.gov/a/2015-26587
U.S. Census
https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexual-abuse-people-disabilities
https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexual-abuse-people-disabilities
