 Good afternoon and welcome to Condo Insider. This is the weekly show on condominium living. And we deal with topics that affect people who live, work, and manage condominiums. And today our guests are from the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii. And I want to welcome, we have three people. We are really lucky today. We have three people. We have Sergio Alcubilla. He is the Director of External Relations for the Legal Aid Society. And we have Dan O'Meara, who is managing attorney for the Consumer Protection Unit. And we have Madonna Castro Perez, who is a civil rights advocate. Thank you and welcome to our show today. Thank you for having us. Okay, now first let's go to Sergio. Sergio, you're going to tell us what the Legal Aid Society is and what it does and how, why our audience should be interested in the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii. Again, thank you for having us. And I think definitely, I think the why is important. Why we do the work that we do. And it goes back to our vision of building a just society. I mean, we believe in helping the most vulnerable in our community with their legal issues. Those could be helping victims of domestic violence get out of an abusive relationship, helping our homeless get off the streets, helping our families stay in safe and stable homes. Our staff, we have about a staff of 111 offices statewide. We believe that fairness and justice for all shouldn't just be for those that can afford it. That's the why part. Exactly what we do, so we're the oldest nonprofit legal service provider in the state. We're a public interest law firm. We have 11 offices statewide, offices on every major island. So what we do is we help people with their civil legal problems. It can be in areas of family law, public benefits, immigration, housing, consumer issues. So it can be anything from brief services to all the way to full representation. And brief services that can be, when people call or intake hotline, we provide legal advice over the telephone. Or it could be helping them fill out paperwork and court forms. And it could be all the way if they need full representation, if it's something that they need someone to advocate for them on their behalf. And finally, we help people access legal resources. We understand we get about 20,000 calls every year and we can't help every single person. As much as we would want to, we just don't have the resources to do that. And so we help people access the legal resources that they need so they can educate themselves. And they know what their rights are. So that could be online forms, legal information videos or any other technology pieces that we can use that can help people understand their rights. And Dan, today we're going to be talking about fair housing issues. And that's where you might have some relevance. Sure. With our fair housing group, we are the only entity in Hawaii that has received funds from HUD to a fair housing enforcement program. What we do is we offer intake services for people who have discrimination concerns. And what differentiates the fair housing from some of the other services provided by legal aid is that you do not have to be income qualified. So regardless of your income, if you have a fair housing discrimination case, we can address that issue for you. So that means if a condo owner has, if they think they've got a fair housing claim, they can come to legal aid and you guys can help them. And we help them at no cost. There's no cost for legal fees, which is a big deal. For anybody, whether you can afford it or not, it's good to have an advocate behind you who's one of the few practices in the state that actually represents people who have been discriminated against in fair housing. It's not a widely practiced area of law in Hawaii. So we have funding for that program. We have attorneys who handle those cases. We have paralegals who handle it. We deal with HUD directly. We deal with the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission directly. We file complaints. We can go to court, state court or federal court. We also can offer... One of the things our funding allows us to do is education. So we're able to provide education and training for free again to people who need it. We've done it for housing providers such as real estate companies. We can do it for ALO management companies. We can do it for ALO boards. Frankly, we can do it for attorneys. We can educate whomever is out there who wants to be a little more tuned into fair housing because there's a lot of hot button issues in fair housing. And it's a benefit to provide free training for that across the state. Why would you just mention... Give us a list of some of the issues that fair housing affects. Well, we have... There's a bunch of protected classes. So there's state protected classes and federal protected classes. And so what you have is... You have race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability and familial status. Which means if you have kids, they can't not provide you housing because you have kids. You can't say, oh, hey, we don't rent this to kids. They can't do that. And in Hawaii, they protect your marital status. So if you're single or not single, they can't discriminate on that basis. Your HIV infection, your age, your ancestry, your gender identity or expression and your sexual orientation. So it can take a lot of different forms. I mean, disabilities includes a lot of things that you probably are... People are familiar with sort of a hot button issue with comfort animal and service animals. Those come under disabilities. And then you have people who have wheelchair and access issues to their unit. So it's a whole broad range of things. And we also... It's prior to where we have a large Micronesian population. We've found that they have challenges as a community with some of the issues of housing and how they deal with culturally, how they perceive housing and how they perceive paying rent and how they perceive what you're supposed to do. And so there's ways that if they don't speak the language, they should be able to have interpreters. So there's a whole range of fair housing issues that come up all the time. And you mentioned training. Why would it be important to train like association staff members? I mean, because usually it's the board who makes these decisions. And I mean, why is it important that the association staff be trained? Because they all can be liable. So it's not just the board, it's the people who...the providers. That can be your person who answers the phone. It can be your custodian. It can be your grounds crew, depending on how they're treating people. And the part of the importance... I mean, the real...the simple importance is you can be liable for money. You can be liable for damages. So somebody acting on behalf of the board or through the board or through the management company can put that association at risk for monetary damages and other actions, civil rights complaint basically. And so it crosses the board. And so the more people who are aware of it, the better. And that's why we're pleased to be able to take those opportunities. We probably don't have as many people seek it as we would like, but we're happy when it comes up. And your office does do the training. And what do you do? You teach them about the law and some of the do's and don'ts and things to look out for me? What exactly? We give them examples. We show them the types of things, the pitfalls. Some of the things they need to be aware of. Some of the items to be sensitive to that we've seen come up. And so we go through examples. We take questions. And there's a lot of people who have a lot of questions. Once they start hearing about something, they always will come up with a question on this or that. The comfort animal thing, almost any time you go to some place, you're going to get questions on that. Or disabilities or language access. You get questions on those all the time. And so we provide some basic information so that they can avoid putting themselves in their condo association or their management company or their employees at risk of discrimination. And when you talk about at risk, what is their exposure? What kind of exposure do the associations and the management companies have if they violate fair housing? The typical scenario, it can go all the way up to going to federal court with a lawsuit where they're subject to damages which can, some fair housing claims have been, you know, $10,000, some have been six-figure, seven-figure awards. And then you also have, with the Civil Rights Commission, typically what happens is there's an investigation process which is, they don't enjoy it when they're being investigated. It's not a pleasant thing. It takes away from their daily activities to be investigated. And they can be subject to taking affirmative relief so they might have to be forced to go to training. They might have to implement policies. They might have to change their bylaws. They might have to change their covenants if they've got improper procedures, along with money. I mean, we've settled things for, you know, we've had comfort animal cases settled for over $75,000. Wow. Well, you know, we have a video that we're going to be showing that was developed for your program, right? We're going to cut to the video. And after the video, we're going to take a one-minute break and then we're going to come back and talk about that video. Okay, so let's look at this video, the 10 things not to do. If you've chosen the apartment industry for your career, chances are you know a lot about fair housing laws. But why are discrimination lawsuits so common? And what can you do to make sure you're never involved in one? You're probably very familiar with the seven protected classes defined by the Fair Housing Act. You know, race, religion, nationality, color, sex, familial status, and disability status. Chances are good that your state or city has even more protected classes than the federal government. Did you know in Washington, DC, it's illegal to treat people differently because of their political affiliation? It's true. If you don't know the additional protected classes in your area, find out. In fair housing terms, discrimination means treating someone differently because of their membership in a protected class. And it's against the law. Most multifamily professionals don't intentionally discriminate, but fair housing lawsuits happen, in many cases because people make mistakes. So let's run through Grace Hill's top 10 fair housing mistakes so you can make sure these missteps never happen in your community. Ready? Let's count them down. Number 10. Forbidding kids from doing things like saying children may not ride bikes on the sidewalk. Your rules can't be different for kids or people with kids. They're part of a protected class, familial status. Instead, say no bicycle riding on the sidewalk. Number 9. Asking a prospective resident how many children do you have? This may seem like a polite conversation starter, but you don't want your customer to think you're treating them differently just because of their family size. Number 8. Not realizing your state or city has protected classes in addition to the 7 in the Fair Housing Act. You've got to do your research on this one. The HUD website is a great place to start. Number 7. Not keeping good records about your leasing tours. Document everything, including the apartments you showed and the rental rates you offered. Number 6. Denying a rental application because you had a bad feeling about a customer. That's totally not okay. Stick to your community's qualification guidelines. Number 5. Refusing to create a reserved parking spot for a resident with a disability because you have plenty of handicapped parking already. It's always wise to meet a resident's accommodation request if you can. Involve your supervisor before saying no. Number 4. Telling a resident they can't have a service animal because you don't accept pets. Listen closely because this is important. A service animal is not a pet. You are required by law to allow them, whether it's a dog, a monkey, or even a miniature pony. Number 3. Not realizing that hoarding isn't just the stuff of reality TV shows, it's a disability. Proceed with caution if you discover a resident is hoarding. Talk with your boss at once. Number 2. Letting your maintenance team complete service requests in any order they like. To avoid any appearance of preferential treatment, establish a response system and stick to it. And the number one fair housing mistake is failing to train everyone who interacts with customers on fair housing requirements. And we mean everyone. Leasing, management, maintenance. If they talk to the public, they need to be trained. Don't let these fair housing mistakes happen to you or your coworkers. Learn more online. And remember, it's hip to be fair. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, and I'm the host of Likeable Science on Think Tech Hawaii. I hope you'll join me every Friday at 2 p.m. to discover what is likeable about science. We bring on scientists of all ilk, astronomers, physicists, chemists, biologists, ecologists, and they talk about their work, and more importantly they talk about why you should talk about their work, why you should think about their work, why you should like their work. I help them bring out why their work is understandable, why it's meaningful, why they care about it, why people should support science. We have a good time. We talk about current events of interest. We talk about historical events sometimes. We dig deep into their research, why they do, what the joys and delights and frustrations of their work are. And in all, we show a real world of science, a real world of likeable science. I hope you'll join us every Friday at 2 p.m. Okay, welcome back. We're here with Dan O'Meara and Madonna Kasha Perez of the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, and we're discussing the Top 10 Fair Housing Mistakes. We just saw the video, and it talked about 10. I'm only going to highlight some of the ones that I think our listeners will be most interested in, and I think the one I know I hear a lot about is service animals. Okay, we have a lot of condos that have no pet rules. And the buildings have adopted these rules for a reason, and a lot of these buildings started off to have pets. And because there were abuses, people didn't take care of their pets and irritated a bunch of people. So they passed bylaw amendments, and so there were no pets. I know in my building, I think our no pet bylaw amendment happened in 1986 or something like that, but a lot of buildings have them, okay? So under fair housing, it's considered discrimination, right? If somebody has a disability and needs a service animal, and the building has no pets policy, you have to allow that service animal in the building. Well, I just want to point out that there's a difference between an assistance animal and service animal. Okay. So the American Disability Act has a different definition of what a service animal is. So in terms of fair housing, under the law, they describe it as assistance animal, which is a very broad term to encompass... It's broader than service animal. Yeah, so service animals, assistance animals also include service animals. It also includes emotional support animals and comfort animals. Basically, any animal that is basically there to work to perform a task to help alleviate or mitigate symptoms of one's disability. And so what kind of animals would qualify for an assistance animal or a service animal? Any kind of animal that doesn't pose a health and safety threat to the condo or through the housing complex, with, however, in Hawaii, I know there are laws that prohibit snakes, so obviously a snake is not a reasonable animal to have as an assistance animal, but in generally speaking, any kind of animal that is there to perform the task of relieving or mitigating someone's symptoms of their disability. And one part that helps clarify it, I think that people... It's a misunderstanding is pets. People say there's no pets. Well, service animals, assistance animals aren't deemed pets. So people are used to saying, we can't have pets. We have no pet policy, which is fine. But service animals and assistance animals aren't really defined as pets. They're treated as a separate category. So that's part of the way the verbiage makes it confusing for people who are used to saying that we have a no pet policy. And I think with a lot of condominium people and what I'm hearing is they feel that there are certain homeowners or residents who apply for an accommodation that they are abusing the policy for the people who really need these assistance animals or whatever. So there is a feeling out there that there is an abuse and people are taking advantage of it. Like in one instance, somebody told me about a comfort chicken. And it's like, well, you have to kind of keep a straight face because you don't want to make light of this because it's a very serious issue. But I'm saying that there are people in the industry who feel that there is abuse. So let's say somebody wants an accommodation. Can the association ask that person to provide a doctor's letter or some verification from somebody to say that they really need this assistance animal? If the disability is not apparent, so most mental disabilities are not apparent. So the housing provider doesn't know whether or not that individual needs an assistance animal. So if that's the case where the disability is not apparent, then it's okay to ask the person requesting an accommodation to have a letter from a medical provider. It could be a social worker, it could be a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a treating medical professional that's worked with the person and who recommended that individual to have an assistance animal. Does it make a difference what type of medical profession it is because I heard of a situation where a dentist wrote the letter and I think an association questioned that and said, you need to get it from somebody else other than a dentist because the disability did not affect the mouth or the oral, it wasn't anything to do with the teeth. So they basically said, we can't accept this, you need to go and bring us a letter from a doctor or a psychiatrist or some other, but not a dentist. Is that a violation of fair housing? Well, it's preferably a medical provider that's treating that person or that person to have that specific assistance animal. The main thing that condo associations have to do or housing providers they have to do is go through the interactive process. So you can't just flat out deny this accommodation request. You have to go through steps to make sure that person is being accommodated. So I know there's some times in which the board doesn't meet for a while, so what the board could do is they could grant a temporary approval until the next board meeting. So that's the case. It's usually, I recommend for the association to have their attorney look over to documents and say, okay, this is questionable. I think, yes, maybe we should have another verification form. Perhaps they could talk to their psychologist or whoever's treating them for that specific symptom in which they need that accommodation. So a delay could be considered a violation. And so what if a board only meets quarterly? Yeah, undue delay. You have to engage in a process. You can't just sort of sit on these things. So somebody might have a legitimate need for something sooner than three months. So the board or the management company has to figure out some way to address things that come up in between board meetings. Right. And one of the things you should know about our fair housing program is we take it seriously because we know the concerns you're raising are concerns. There's a sense of scam-ness to some of it. So we have our own threshold. We want to make sure these are not happening. We aren't looking for people who have gotten something off the internet from Texas. And then they come here and say, well, I got this certification from Texas and they gave me a vest for my dog. Well, we want to go a little step further than that. We want to be able to talk to whoever the provider is. We want to seek authorization to talk to whoever is giving the opinion so that we can kind of make a threshold legitimacy thing. And it's reasonable because there is a lot of, like you say, there's a lot of noise around this topic. Right. Well, there are some condos who have rules about the size of the animals that you could have. Like they may have a 25-pound rule. And some condos have rules about no-pit bulls because they feel that they're dangerous, like a German Shepherd or a Rod Weiler. And the reason for limiting different breeds would be, well, we consider them dangerous. And so how does that comply with fair housing if you've got a person whose accommodation is, I want a pit bull? Okay. So there's two separate questions in your question that I see. So the one question that you had is, are there any breed and size restrictions for an assistance animal under the Fair Housing Act? The answer is no. There are no breed and size restrictions for an assistance animal. And that's because assistance animals are not pets. So when someone is making an accommodation request to have an assistance animal in their unit, it's usually because they're asking for a waiver on the no-pet policy because the assistance animal is not a pet. And so the other thing that you asked is like, okay, so what if this dog has a history of biting people? Then automatically you can deny that because it is a safety concern. It's a safety concern that dog has a history of biting other residents. And so I can see how it could be okay for the association to deny that accommodation. Okay, and you know what typically happens is when it's, you know, with service animals, service animals have been trained and so they're like different from the so-called assistance animals. The assistance animals don't have the training into not bark or you know, whatever. And what the association usually do is when they grant the accommodation, the board has granted your accommodation. But please be aware that if your animal becomes a nuisance under, you know, to the other residents in the building that you may have to, you know, the animal may have to leave. In other words, if it barks and there's lots of complaints about barking that you cannot control the dog or if it bites or attacks somebody. And you know, at some point the association is going to say the animal has to leave because now it's a safety concern or it's interfering with somebody else's use of the building. Is that okay under fair housing? Those types of rules? Okay, so in general, the condo associations have house rules that have quiet hours or if they say there is extreme disturbances after a certain hour. I can see how the property manager would issue violation notices saying your dog was barking incessantly after 2 a.m. or right after you leave from work the dog was barking like constantly. So in that sense, like, it's not posing like a direct threat in a sense because it's in the unit and it's just barking. The association can engage in an interactive process and say, hey, your dog's barking all the time. Maybe you can put a muzzle on it. Like maybe you can do something about it. But if the tenant isn't complying if the tenant's still violating the house rules no matter how much warning you've sent them so that would be a case in which, okay, you should talk to the private attorney and see, okay, we tried our best. We tried to engage in an interactive process. We tried to negotiate them and nothing's happened. So in that case, I would recommend talking to your private attorney. And right now we're kind of running out of time so this means you have to come back. Okay, so can you come back? Because this is, I mean, this is a topic. I still have a lot more questions to ask. So will you guys come back in the future for another show, a continuation? Part two? Part two, sure. Yeah? Sure. Okay, well thank you. And thank you all for joining us today. And so this, we've had the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii here answering some questions about fair housing. And thank you for joining us and join us again next week every Thursday at 3 o'clock. And see you then, aloha.