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Housing
The Legal
Center has been committed to promoting and defending the rights
of people with disabilities to obtain integrated, safe, accessible
housing for nearly a quarter century. Since our inception, we have
sought to tackle the physical barriers, stereotypes and stigma that
threaten to deprive individuals with disabilities the equal opportunity
to live independently, prominently and proudly in our communities.
From our early efforts advocating integration and community living
on behalf of people forced to live in institutions, to enforcing
accessibility requirements in newly constructed housing, our mission
has increasingly taken us from the locked ward to the house next
door.
In 1968,
just days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Congress passed Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968-the Fair
Housing Act. Twenty years later, Congress extended the protections
of this Act to people with disabilities. Under the Fair Housing
Amendments Act of 1988, individuals with disabilities are protected
from discrimination in housing rental, sale, lending, advertising
and insurance practices. Importantly, the Act also required most
new, multifamily residential construction be designed and built
to include basic accessibility features.
The Legal
Center prioritizes its fair housing advocacy work to assist Coloradans
with disabilities in obtaining affordable, accessible housing. We
routinely assist people with disabilities that are in jeopardy of
losing their housing for reasons related to disability and accessibility,
and we advocate the provision of legally required accommodations
necessary for them to continue to live in their home. Our assistance
can range from obtaining a flashing doorbell for a tenant with deafness
to fighting neighborhood resistance and restrictive zoning requirements
against a hospice home for people with AIDS.
Colorado Protection and
Advocacy for
Individual Rights
This program
provides direct representation in complaints of housing discrimination
based on disability to tenants and applicants of federally subsidized
public housing programs, and provides direct representation in complaints
of limited housing options to individuals with disabilities in residential
treatment settings who are ineligible for services from the Colorado
Long-term Care Ombudsman Program. The Legal Center provides information
and referral services to individuals with disabilities in private
housing.
Read more
about the priorities and objectives of Colorado
Protection and Advocacy for Individual Rights.
The Legal Center would like your input on our priorities for the
upcoming year. Go to the Priorities
Survey on this website.
More Resources:
The Rights
of Individuals with Disabilities to Fair Housing in Colorado,
prepared by the Protection and Advocacy for Individual Rights Program
at The Legal Center. A link to this can also be found in the Resource
Section on this website.
U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
HUD resources specifically for people with disabilities, including
access to fair housing laws, general housing resources, accessibility
guidelines, and HUD news
Housing
Discrimination
Information on filing a complaint of housing discrimination with
the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at HUD. Links are
available to file online, by mail or in person.
Consortium
for Citizens with Disabilities
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, a coalition of national
consumer, advocacy, provider and professional organizations, maintains
a website of helpful information on promoting accessible housing
programs in your community through grass roots advocacy. The Consortium’s
Opening Doors newsletter is an excellent source for technical housing
advocacy information and is available online at this site.
National
Fair Housing Advocate
The National Fair Housing Advocate online newsletter offers fair
housing headlines and other civil rights news from across the country
updated on a daily basis.
Bazelon
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law provides legal advocacy resources
and national advocacy for the civil rights and human dignity of
people with mental disability.
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