November 2025 Coach's Quiz
QUESTIONS
1. It’s unreasonable for residents to ask for an exception to the policies that apply to everyone else. True or false?
a. True.
b. False.
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a. True.
b. False.
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Answer: b
When an applicant or resident asks for an exception to your rules or policies, your first impulse may be to just say no. But fair housing experts warn against rejecting requests from applicants or residents for disability-related accommodations simply because they want an exception to your policies. By definition, reasonable accommodations are exceptions, changes, or adjustments to community policies, rules, or services needed because of a disability.
2. Any requested accommodation that costs the community money is unreasonable. True or false?
a. True.
b. False.
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a. True.
b. False.
Answer: b
A requested accommodation isn’t unreasonable simply because it requires the community to pay some costs, but communities may deny requests as unreasonable when providing the requested accommodation would be so costly that imposes an undue financial and administrative burden on the community.
3. A resident calls the office to say that she has a disability that makes it physically impossible for her to open the Dumpster that you’ve placed in the parking lot for trash collection. She says she needs you to send a maintenance worker to her unit on a daily basis to collect her trash and take it to the Dumpster. You should:
a. Say no—she doesn’t appear to be disabled so she’s not entitled to special treatment.
b. Ignore it—she didn’t say she needed a reasonable accommodation.
c. Deny the request—maintenance workers are on site only three days a week, so it’s unreasonable to ask for daily trash pickup.
d. Talk to the resident—to resolve the issue, you should discuss possible alternatives that would meet her disability-related needs.
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a. Say no—she doesn’t appear to be disabled so she’s not entitled to special treatment.
b. Ignore it—she didn’t say she needed a reasonable accommodation.
c. Deny the request—maintenance workers are on site only three days a week, so it’s unreasonable to ask for daily trash pickup.
d. Talk to the resident—to resolve the issue, you should discuss possible alternatives that would meet her disability-related needs.
Answer: d
This example, taken from the federal guidelines, shows what federal officials expect you to do when a requested accommodation may be unreasonable. They say that you should engage in an “interactive process” with the resident to discuss whether there’s a reasonable alternative accommodation that would effectively address the resident’s disability needs.
Wrong answers explained:
a. Whatever you think of the validity of the request, it’s important to take her request for a reasonable accommodation seriously. Follow standard procedures and get more information, if needed, to determine whether the resident has a disability and a disability-related need for the requested accommodation.
b. Listen carefully whenever anyone says they want or need something special because of a disability. Under the FHA, a resident makes a reasonable accommodation request whenever they make it clear to the housing provider that they’re requesting an exception, change, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service because of a disability. The resident doesn’t have to mention fair housing law or use the words “reasonable accommodation.”
c. If you have a limited budget and your maintenance staff is on site only a few days a week, then it may be an undue financial and administrative burden on the community to grant her request for daily trash pickup. The requested accommodation may be unreasonable, but the guidelines suggest discussing an alternative that would meet the resident’s disability-related needs without imposing an undue burden on the community. For example, you could place an open trash can in a location accessible to the resident so she can dispose of her own trash and your maintenance staff could empty it when onsite.
Answer: C. Deliberately. In the concluding chapter of Walden (a book about his experiences living for two years, two months, and two days by Walden Pond), Thoreau wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
