How Does Your Housing Authority Communicate with Consumers Who Cannot Read English?
Our own Marc Dubin, Esq. has written an interesting piece on what can happen if there is a communication problem with the landlord. Even though there are federal laws in place to protect consumers from unscrupulous landlords, they will be taken advantage of unless they know their rights. This is an important thing to remember, if you feed you are bring taken advantage of, get help so that you know your rights. Until people start to take matters into their own hands, it will be easy for those who want something for nothing to steal it from those who are barely making ends meet.
A consumer who is deaf was living in Section 8 housing, and was evicted by her landlord. She cannot read or write English, and uses American Sign Language as her primary means of communication. She was not told the reason for the eviction. Shortly after being evicted, the Housing Authority wrote to her, and terminated her Section 8 voucher, ruling her ineligible for future services, asserting that she had failed to notify them of her departure from the Section 8 property within 30 days of the eviction. She and her two children then became homeless.
In communicating with her, the Housing Authority had her use her son as an interpreter, and wrote to her in English, even though she used American Sign Language, and could not read or write English.
The CIL contacted the Housing Authority’s Section 8 Program’s ADA Coordinator, and discussed the Housing Authority’s ADA obligation to effectively communicate with her. Within four hours of receiving our email and telephone call, the Housing Authority reinstated her into the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program. They have also agreed to review how they communicate with Section 8 voucher recipients who are deaf or hard of hearing, and implement new policies to effectively communicate with these clients.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Loading ...
User Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.