Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)

Since January 1, 2020, California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) has prohibited housing providers from discriminating against prospective tenants based on their source of income, including the use of a Section 8 voucher. Discrimination under FEHA includes the use of income eligibility requirements that are based on total rent, rather than the portion of the rent to be paid directly by the Section 8 tenant. In a lawsuit filed on September 11, DREDF challenges the use of discriminatory income standards by housing providers in Long Beach, CA. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of an aggrieved prospective tenant and the Fair Housing Foundation - the fair housing organization that confirmed the provider's discriminatory policies through testing. Read about the lawsuit at the link below. Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) has been at the forefront of enforcing fair housing protections for Section 8 voucher holders under California Law. Discrimination based on source of income - and particularly receipt of Section 8 rental assistance - disproportionately impacts people with disabilities and black and brown people. Enforcement is essential. #FairHousing #DisabilityDiscrimination #Section8

If implemented by the next presidential administration, Project 2025 would be devastating for people with disabilities. The plan would slash Medicaid funding, decrease protections for kids with disabilities in school, make it more difficult for disabled veterans to access disability benefits, restrict access to abortion, contraception and gender affirming care, decrease access to federally funded and subsidized affordable housing, and much, much more. My colleague Claudia Center (she/her/hers) wrote an informative piece (with detailed page citations) about the dangers of Project 2025 for the disability community. Read more on the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) website here: https://lnkd.in/gX5v68MG

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) and Disability Rights California collaborated on this "Know Your Rights” guide on mask bans for California college and university campuses. This was written, in part, to respond to the University of California's recently ordered mask ban. Mask bans make it difficult, and in some cases impossible, for disabled people and their allies to access public spaces without fear and harassment. They put disabled people and their family members at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Exemptions for health and safety reasons are insufficient, and impossible to implement without reinforcing biases and subjecting people to unnecessary and intrusive policing, surveillance, and demands to remove masks. Please share widely! #DisabilityRights #MaskBans

This week, PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff reported on the affordable housing shortage for people with disabilities as part of their Disability Reframed series. Erin Nguyen Neff, DREDF's Senior Staff Attorney, was interviewed and called for the centering of disabled people in policies for affordable and accessible housing.

Join us for our upcoming webinar “No Protest Without Us: Tips and Tools for Protestors with Disabilities” on Thursday, August 29 at 1 pm PST / 4 pm ET. Meet our expert panelists, including seasoned disability justice activist Anita Cameron, and Atlanta Solidarity Fund activist Adele MacLean, to learn how to navigate protests as a disabled participant. This is an essential training for both protestors and organizers aiming to create accessible and inclusive actions. DREDF, Disability Law United, and the Civil Liberties Defense Center have developed two “Know Your Rights” guides that will be released and made accessible on the DREDF, DLU and CLDC websites by the webinar date. ASL and CART provided. Video replay will be available. Registration link: https://lnkd.in/g33kpRHi

Join us for an essential discussion on the impacts of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson (“Grants Pass”) on people with disabilities. This upcoming webinar with The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the National Homelessness Law Center on August 28th at 11:00 am PT / 2:00 pm ET will: - Provide an overview of the Grants Pass case and the disability-related “friend of the court” briefs filed in the case; - Explain why people with disabilities are particularly at-risk of harm due to the increased criminalization of homelessness; - Explore the relationship between the Grants Pass case, CARE Courts / civil commitments, and efforts to increase the institutionalization of disabled people; - Critique the role of law enforcement and judicial authorities in responding to homelessness; and - Provide an overview of advocacy tools and strategic thinking regarding potential next steps in advocacy. Registration link: https://lnkd.in/gtMB8b8h

"The idea that patients with eating disorders are untreatable, treatment-resistant, or unable to recover has no place in medicine." - Chelsea Roff and Dr. Catherine Cook-Cottone DREDF joined over 100 leading experts and organizations in releasing a joint statement calling on governments to take immediate action to halt the practice of assisted suicide for people with eating disorders. Our call to action comes in response to a recent study revealing that at least sixty patients with eating disorders have been euthanized or assisted in suicide in Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States. This practice undermines decades of research on effective treatments and endangers lives. #TreatableNotTerminal Study: https://lnkd.in/g9f98adi Full statement and list of signatories: https://lnkd.in/gYACQec6

Mask bans (laws that make it illegal for people to wear masks in public) endanger disabled people and make demonstrations and other public events inaccessible. People attending protests should not be forced to risk contracting COVID-19 without a mask or face criminal penalties or police interactions for masking. Police interactions can be deadly, particularly for people who are BIPOC, disabled, or both. Right now, state and local governments are increasingly proposing mask bans as a response to public protest. Mask ban laws make it harder and even impossible for disabled people and their allies to access public spaces – including collective actions for the expression of constitutionally protected speech – without fear and harassment. They put disabled people and their family members at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Today, with Disability Rights California, we issued a statement condemning mask bans and urging lawmakers not to adopt them. Read the full statement: https://lnkd.in/gWwywvJf

The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) recently released its 2024 Fair Housing Trends Report. According to the report, there were 34,150 fair housing complaints received by non-profit Fair Housing Organizations (FHO), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) agencies, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2023, compared to 33,007 in 2022 – a 3.5% increase. This represents the highest number of fair housing complaints recorded since NFHA began producing its Trends Report in the mid-1990s. Discrimination based on disability accounted for the majority (17,968 or 52.61 percent) of complaints filed with FHOs, HUD, and FHAP agencies. This comes as no surprise. People with disabilities are at an extremely high risk of experiencing housing discrimination including: - The failure of housing developers to build units that are accessible to people with disabilities; - Discriminatory rental policies (e.g. refusing to rent to someone who uses a wheelchair for fear they may damage the floors or walls); - Unequal treatment (e.g. refusing to allow someone with HIV to use the pool facilities because of fears they may transmit the virus to others); - Failure to provide reasonable accommodations (e.g. refusing to allow an assistance animal in “no pet” housing);  - Failure to allow reasonable modifications (e.g. refusing to allow a tenant to modify their bathroom by installing grab bars and a roll-in shower) - Exclusions and differential treatment due to paternalistic views and deep-rooted stigmas (e.g. refusing to rent to someone with a developmental disability unless they have a non-disabled roommate); and - Harassment based on disability. Sadly, the data reflected in NFHA’s report represents only a small portion of the millions of incidents of illegal housing discrimination that occur each year. Housing discrimination often goes undetected and unreported because it is difficult to identify and document. People may not be aware of their fair housing rights. It is also common for people who experience discrimination to feel that nothing can or will be done about their rights being violated, and/or they may be deterred from filing a complaint due to fear of retaliation.  Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) will continue to do its part in combatting housing discrimination in our communities. However, the reality is that private nonprofit FHOs process the vast majority of housing discrimination complaints (75.52 percent in 2023), underscoring the need for lawmakers to allocate sustainable funding to support their critical work. Read the full Fair Housing Trends report here:  https://lnkd.in/gy-gT92D #FairHousing #DisabilityRights #Discrimination #HousingIsAHumanRight

This #DisabilityPrideMonth, we honor history, and own our own experiences without apology.