(Photo not that of the actual client.)
“Maryanne,” who suffers from PTSD, recently moved from the Midwest to Jacksonville, where she lives in public housing owned and operated by the Jacksonville Housing Authority.
The conditions in her roach-infested apartment, where she had to go through a central lobby to get to the elevators, triggered her PTSD, and she was unable to live there. Without taking the proper steps under Florida law, Maryanne withheld her rent due to the conditions of her apartment.
Fortunately, JALA’s Fair Housing Unit was able to negotiate with the housing authority so that she could pay her rent late while remaining stably housed and eligible for reasonable accommodations. In her case, that meant transfer to a different apartment complex where each unit has its own entrance, which the housing authority approved as a reasonable accommodation.
