Equal Access Matters: A Practical Guide to Disability-Focused Housing Investigations

This training is essential for affordable housing professionals who want to confidently and correctly handle disability-related complaints while reducing compliance and civil rights risk. It focuses on the issues most likely to trigger HUD findings—such as reasonable accommodations, assistance animals, live-in aides, and payment standard exceptions—and shows participants how to apply FHA, Section 504, ADA, and PIH guidance in real investigations. Attendees gain practical tools and clear frameworks to avoid common mistakes, document defensible findings, and ensure equal access while protecting their agency or organization from avoidable enforcement actions.

 

Areas Covered

• Overview of federal disability civil rights requirements in affordable housing, including the Fair Housing Act, Section 504, ADA, and key HUD PIH guidance.
• How to correctly identify and apply the appropriate regulations in disability-related complaints, such as reasonable accommodation, modification, accessibility, or effective communication.
• A practical, step-by-step approach to conducting disability-focused housing investigations from intake through final findings.
• Guidance on investigating high-risk issues like assistance animals, live-in aides, accessible units, and reasonable accommodation payment standard requests.
• Best practices for evidence collection and documentation that result in clear, defensible, HUD-aligned findings.
• Common compliance and investigation mistakes and proven strategies to avoid them. 

Who Should Attend

Target Audience:

• PHA compliance staff, investigators, and supervisors
• Housing Choice Voucher and Public Housing program administrators and managers
• Affordable housing owners, agents, and property management staff working with HUD-assisted programs
• Fair housing, civil rights, and compliance professionals are responsible for complaint resolution and risk mitigation
• Legal, policy, and oversight staff who review or support disability-related housing decisions and investigations.