The Federal Government Just Made It Harder to Come Home

Last week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a memo that will directly affect some of the people we serve.

No vote in Congress. No court ruling. No change to the law. Just an internal document, signed by an assistant secretary, effective immediately, canceling nearly two decades of federal guidance that protected emotional support animals in housing. Under the old framework, landlords were generally required to accommodate tenants whose disabilities were supported by an ESA. Under the new one, HUD will no longer pursue complaints from tenants whose animals haven't been individually trained to perform specific tasks. That's the standard used for service animals in public spaces. It was never meant to be the standard for housing.

The Fair Housing Act hasn't changed. It still says landlords must make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. What changed is that the federal agency responsible for enforcing that law decided to stop doing it for a significant category of disabled tenants. The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund has a detailed breakdown of exactly what the memo does and what protections technically remain. We encourage anyone navigating a housing situation involving an assistance animal to read it.

Why this matters to the people we work with

We've written before about why so many of the people we meet in outreach have pets. If you haven't read that piece, the short version is this: when someone is bouncing between shelters, couches, and encampment sites, the relationships that usually anchor a person — family, friends, community — often fall away. An animal stays. It doesn't judge. It doesn't have a limit on how many times you can need it. For a lot of people, that animal has been present through everything that led to housing instability and through everything that might lead out of it.

That's an actual factor in whether someone can stabilize.

Pet restrictions already close housing doors on people in our community. Whether an animal qualifies for an accommodation determines whether someone can say yes to a unit at all. Before May 22nd, there was at least a federal enforcement mechanism that gave that accommodation request some weight. Now there isn't, not for the category of animals most of our guests actually have.

This isn't just an eviction policy. It is one more mechanism keeping people out of the housing they need, added to a system that was already failing to keep up.

Our colleague, Ben Sears, Executive Director of the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, described the conditions on the ground clearly: "The individuals that are living outside in homeless encampments, that are having their homes swept away, are the ones that are not accessing these services that are being provided and being funded, because there's no space for them. There's a waiting list for the waiting list. If you're living outside, and you want to have a direct housing pathway, you can't even join the waiting list to wait for that housing."

He's also right that the numbers we use to measure this problem understate it. The point-in-time count (the official count of people experiencing homelessness) captures who was outside on one specific night, usually in winter, when many people are in shelters or warming centers. It misses people in cars. It misses people who aren't visible. The scale of need is larger than what shows up in any official count, and the formal system is already overwhelmed by what it can see.

This policy lands on top of all of that.

What Ohio lacks and what we can build

Some states have their own fair housing protections that operate independently of HUD's enforcement posture. California, New York, and Massachusetts are among them. Ohio is not. The federal floor was the floor here, and it just shifted.

That matters for tenants in active accommodation disputes, who now have no meaningful federal recourse. It matters for people trying to access housing with an animal that has supported them through mental health challenges, trauma, or disability, animals that don't come with training certifications but are no less real in their function.

There are things that can be built in response. Funds that help cover pet fees and deposits for people with documented ESA needs can fill some of the gap left by the loss of federal enforcement. Landlord-facing damage reimbursement funds (small reserves that cover verified pet-related costs) reduce the financial risk that makes housing providers hesitant to accommodate animals in the first place. Ohio's Pet Friendly Rental Act (HB 277), which passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee in 2024, would offer landlords a tax credit of up to $750 per unit for agreeing to accept pets without nonrefundable fees or breed restrictions. That bill still hasn't been signed into law. It should be, and it should be extended to cover ESA-specific protections alongside companion animals more broadly.

Landlords also have a choice here that isn't determined by federal policy. This memo removes the enforcement consequence for exclusion. It doesn't require exclusion. Housing providers who want to be part of stable, connected communities can hold their own standard, and we'd welcome the conversation with any who want to think through what that looks like in practice.

What we're doing and what we're asking

We're continuing to connect people to fair housing resources and legal support when accommodation requests are denied. We're tracking how this policy change affects the people we serve. And we're raising this with the legislators who represent our community, because Ohio has an opening to act, a state-level affirmation of ESA protections in housing, with an enforcement mechanism that doesn't depend on federal will, is a real and achievable ask.

If you or someone you know is facing a housing situation involving an assistance animal, reach out. We'll help connect you to what's available.

The law didn't change. The people who need housing didn't change. What changed is how much the federal government is willing to do about it. That's not a reason to stop. It's a reason to be louder about what we're building here.