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SALT LAKE CITY — A city housing assistance management company and a Salt Lake City apartment complex agreed to pay a tenant $18,000 plus additional fees to settle a federal disability discrimination complaint, U.S. housing officials said Wednesday.
The agreement settled a complaint by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity on behalf of a Salt Lake City woman against Jefferson School Apartments, LLC and the Housing Assistance Management Enterprise, which had been filed on Sept. 2, 2016.
A woman living at the apartment complex claimed it didn’t provide “reasonable accommodation” for her disability because it refused to assign a designated covered parking spot near her unit and “subjected her to different terms and conditions because of her disability,” according to a federal document.
The investigation found the woman had made a request for the closer parking spot in April and May 2016, and provided a third-party verification to prove she had a need for a closer parking spot, but was initially turned down, according to the document.
The complex owners and housing authority both denied the allegations and said they had put her on a waiting list for when a covered parking spot was available. They said they also offered her an uncovered spot close to her apartment, but she had turned it down, the documents stated.
The tenant appealed the decision in June 2016 and said she “would have accepted a covered or uncovered assigned space, but respondents only offered to place her on the top of the waiting list for an assigned covered space,” the document stated. She was eventually assigned a covered space in September 2016 when one became available.
The groups reached an agreement in August that was publicized Wednesday. The settlement ends the dispute but isn’t an admission of violating the Fair Housing Act, the document states.
As a part of the agreement, Housing Assistance Management Enterprise and Jefferson School Apartment, LLC will pay the tenant $18,000, transfer her to a ground-floor apartment, assign her a designated parking space in front of the unit, pay up to $2,500 in moving fees and issue an apology to the tenant.
The agreement states that if the complex or management enterprise violates the deal within two years, they could lose financial support from the Housing and Urban Development. Each also agreed to changes to their parking policies.
Anna Maria Farias, assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, said in a statement Wednesday that the decision was a win for persons with disabilities residing in Housing and Urban Development-financed housing.
"Today’s settlement reaffirms HUD’s commitment to ensuring that housing providers are aware of their obligations under the nation’s fair housing laws and take steps to comply with those obligations,” she said.
