Types of Disabilities Protected

• If you are a disabled renter or know of a disabled person who is being threatened by a landlord who is using their disability against them, the federal Fair Housing Amendment Act does offer protection. The federal law considers the following disabilities protected from rental housing discrimination, like a person with mobility, hearing or visual impairments. In addition, the Act considers a tenant who has a chronic alcoholism problem or suffers from mental illness or mental retardation to be disabled and therefore their tenancy is protected from a landlord's potential discriminatory eviction action.
  
  

Court Consideration of Mitigating Circumstances

• If a disabled tenant lives in some type of public subsidized housing and is taken to court for eviction, courts have a legal obligation under federal law to take into consideration the mitigating circumstances before evicting a tenant. Public housing authorities must show discretion by taking into consideration the nature of the tenant's disability, even if the tenant's action's may ordinarily result in proper termination of tenancy, according to the website Northwest Journal of Law and Social Policy.
  
  

Renter Unit Modification Eviction

• Landlords cannot evict a disabled tenant from his home or apartment because the cost of modifying the home to accommodate the disability is costing too much. Landlords have to make reasonable modifications to the living space to insure that it will be safe and comfortable for the tenant. If the tenant decides to undertake the modifications, with the landlord's permission, a landlord cannot evict the tenant as long as the tenant has obtained necessary permits and the work is performed in a workmanlike fashion, according to the website Nolo.
  
  

Raising Disability Eviction Defense

• If the disabled tenant finds himself in court, he should raise the disability as a legal defense which is permitted under the Fair Housing Amendments Act. Once the disability defense is raised then the judge should ascertain not only the nature of the disability, but whether the tenant's due process rights have been violated by the eviction action. If there is no consideration for his disability or evidence that a reasonable accommodation or compromise was not made, it is a violation of the FHAA, according to the website Northwest Journal of Law and Social Policy.