BOLI: Apt. to pay $75K for denying therapy dog

KOIN:

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A northeast Portland apartment complex has been "fined" $75,000 for not approving a resident's request to bring in a therapy dog.The decision was announced Thursday. It comes in the form of a Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries' settlement on charges of "unlawful discrimination."The apartment complex, at the time known as the Fantasy Apartments, is now called the "Skylark Apartments." It's at Southeast 135th Avenue and Division Street in Portland."BOLI's formal charges against the owners and operators alleged that when the mother of a 9-year-old boy with depression and anxiety disorders sought to obtain a companion animal, following a doctor's recommendation, she was told she could move to another of the respondents' properties with her son and foster son," the agency said in a statement released Thursday.  The agency reports that its settlement agreement includes a $75,000 monetary payment -- as well as policy revisions, training for the respondents' staff and ongoing monitoring by the state Civil Rights Division at BOLI."This case could have easily been resolved by making a reasonable accommodation," said Brad Avakian, state Labor and Industries Commissioner and head of BOLI, in his prepared statement. "But instead it took the pressure of a state agency investigation and formal charges to finally bring a just resolution."Avakian called this case "a perfect example of why BOLI's protection for housing rights is so essential to our state." Under contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, BOLI enforces federal fair housing law and "substantially equivalent" state fair housing law, protecting access to housing free from discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion, familial status and disability. State law also protects sexual orientation and gender identity, source of income and marital status.  BOLI reportedly investigates more than 100 fair-housing complaints every year in Oregon.

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