People with severe and persistent mental illness are too often evicted from their housing for reasons that are truly related to a disability, in violation of state and federal law. Evictions are quick and can be initiated and concluded without any consideration of whether a tenant has a disability, despite the fact that a person with a disability has a legal right to receive a reasonable accommodation that will keep the person in his or her housing. Landlords generally do not propose reasonable accommodations for tenants with mental illness of their own volition, and tenants often lack the information and resources necessary to advocate for reasonable accommodations from their landlords. Once an eviction process has begun, there are few mechanisms to ensure that persons with severe and persistent mental illness are able to defend their right to remain in their housing. Further, the courts continually fail to make the promise of the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (FHAA) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) a reality for tenants with severe and persistent mental illness, as the courts too often rubber-stamp evictions from public housing without inquiry into disability status or thought given to what will happen to tenants once they are evicted. For people with mental illness, these evictions may lead to homelessness, or institutionalization that violates the integration mandate of the ADA.
Journal