Emotional Support Animals in Chicago Housing: Washington Changed Its Mind. Illinois Didn't.

In our article on why a Chicago bar can let your dog inside and no restaurant can, we said emotional support animals have real protections in housing, and that housing deserved an article of its own. This is that article — and it turns out to be a more interesting one than it would have been a year ago, because in 2026 Washington changed its position and Illinois did not.

If you rent or own a condo in Chicago and have an emotional support animal, or a building has just asked you for "the ESA paperwork", the short version is this: the federal agency that used to back you up has stepped back, and the Illinois statute that was always the more specific rule is still on the books, word for word.

This is a plain-language explanation of published law and federal guidance, not legal advice. If you are in a dispute with a landlord or condo board, talk to a lawyer or to the agencies named at the end.

First, what an emotional support animal is not

An emotional support animal is not a service animal, and the difference decides almost everything.

A service animal, under the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, is a dog that is "individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability." The same regulation says outright that "the provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship do not constitute work or tasks." That is why a service dog can come into a restaurant and an emotional support dog cannot.

Housing was always the exception. For more than a decade, federal fair-housing guidance treated untrained emotional support animals as a reasonable accommodation a landlord generally had to allow, even in a no-pets building, and without pet fees. That is the part that changed.

What changed in Washington, in two steps

17 September 2025. HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity withdrew a batch of guidance documents, including both of its assistance-animal notices: FHEO-2013-01 and FHEO-2020-01. The 2020 notice was the one landlords and tenants actually used — it is where "an ESA is not a pet, so no pet fee" came from. HUD removed both from its website.

22 May 2026. The Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing, Craig W. Trainor, issued an enforcement memorandum that went much further. Its operative sentence:

"Effective immediately, for complaints related to animal-related reasonable accommodations, FHEO will find reasonable cause and recommend charges only for those cases involving animals trained to provide disability-related assistance."

And, more bluntly:

"requests to waive pet policies for untrained ESAs are not" presumptively reasonable, and "FHEO no longer expects housing providers to categorically extend accommodations for trained assistance animals to untrained ESAs."

The memo says untrained ESAs now account for more than 20% of HUD's fair-housing complaints, directs that every open ESA case be sent up for a case-by-case review, and says HUD intends to write a formal rule bringing housing in line with the ADA's training-based definition. It leans on a July 2025 federal case from Louisiana, Henderson v. Five Properties, in which a judge called the 2020 notice "unpersuasive" and refused to order a landlord to waive a $400 animal fee — partly because the landlord had offered a payment plan and the tenant said she could have paid it in instalments. Worth knowing: that judge also wrote that the court was not holding that animal fees can always be charged to someone with an ESA.

Three things the memo did not do, and they matter:

• It did not change the Fair Housing Act. Congress has not touched the statute. The memo changes how HUD's own investigators decide which complaints to pursue.
• It did not remove the right to sue. The memo says so itself: a tenant can still file a civil action in federal or state court within two years, and "nothing in this enforcement guidance affects the rights of parties to seek redress through a private action in court."
• It did not touch state law. Which, in Illinois, is the part that counts.

What did not change in Illinois

Illinois has had its own statute on exactly this question since 1 January 2020: the Assistance Animal Integrity Act, 310 ILCS 120 (Public Act 101-0518). It is short, it is specific, and it is not federal guidance — it is state law, passed by the General Assembly and signed. Nothing HUD issues can withdraw it.

It names emotional support animals in its first definition:

"'Assistance animal' means an emotional support or service animal that qualifies as a reasonable accommodation under the federal Fair Housing Act or the Illinois Human Rights Act."

Then it does the thing the withdrawn federal notice used to do, except in statute. Section 10(f):

"a housing provider may not require a resident to pay a pet-related deposit, pet fee, or related pet assessment, even if the housing provider allows pets and requires pet owners to pay such costs. A housing provider also may not require a resident with an assistance animal to procure special liability insurance or coverage for the assistance animal."

Read that against Henderson. The Louisiana court was deciding what the federal statute requires. Illinois wrote the answer to the fee question into its own law six years earlier, and it applies to "any owner, housing provider, property management company, property manager, government entity, condominium board, condominium association, cooperative" — so condo boards are inside it, not just landlords.

One honest qualification. The Act defines an assistance animal by reference to what "qualifies as a reasonable accommodation" under the federal Fair Housing Act or the Illinois Human Rights Act. If a court ever decided that an untrained ESA no longer qualifies under either, the Act's protections would narrow with it. The Illinois Human Rights Act has not been amended on this point, the Illinois condo-law firm Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit advised its own association clients in June 2026 that the Integrity Act "remains unchanged", and we found no amendment or court ruling since. But this is the hinge, and it is why we date this article.

What a Chicago landlord or condo board can still ask for

The Integrity Act is not a blank cheque, and its title is a fair description of it. Under Section 10:

• Documentation, only when the need isn't obvious. A housing provider may ask for "reliable documentation of the disability and disability-related need for the animal only if the disability or disability-related need is not readily apparent or known."
• What the documentation must be. In writing, describing the disability-related need for the animal, and from someone with whom you have a "therapeutic relationship" — a physician, a mental-health provider, or a reliable third party "in a position to know about the individual's disability."
• No diagnosis. The Act says nothing in it requires "documentation of a specific diagnosis."
• A form is optional. A building may ask you to use its form but "cannot deny the request because the person did not use the form."
• One letter per animal. For more than one animal, the provider may ask for documentation of the need for each.
• They can check. Nothing prevents a provider from "verifying the authenticity" of what you submit.

And the grounds for saying no are narrow and are about the specific animal, not the species or the building's preferences: an undue financial and administrative burden, a fundamental alteration to how the property operates, or — after "an individualized assessment" with "reliable objective evidence" — that this animal poses a direct threat to others' health or safety, causes substantial damage to others' property, or has a pattern of uncontrolled behaviour its handler has not corrected.

A breed list is not on that list. A building's ban on particular breeds is a rule about pets; the Act's denial grounds are about an individual animal's conduct. That is our reading of the statute's text, not a ruling, but it is a meaningful difference from how pet policies work in Chicago buildings.

And you still pay for damage. The Act lets a provider charge for damage your animal does to your unit or the common areas, "reasonable wear and tear excepted", the same way it would for any resident.

The online-letter problem

This is where the Act earns its name. A "therapeutic relationship" expressly does not include an entity that issues a certificate, licence or similar document confirming a disability or a need for an assistance animal "without conducting a meaningful assessment."

In practice: an ESA "registration", ID card or certificate bought online is not documentation under Illinois law, and never was. A letter from a provider who actually treats you is. Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit's June 2026 note goes further and suggests a letter produced by a one-time online evaluation may fall short where it shows no real provider-patient relationship. That is a firm advising condo boards, so read it as the position you may meet across the table rather than the last word — but it tells you which kind of letter is easiest to defend.

HUD's May memo makes the same complaint at federal level, observing that a whole industry has grown up to turn pets into emotional support animals. Illinois's answer was to define the letter; Washington's answer has been to stop enforcing for untrained animals altogether.

A false friend in the Human Rights Act

You may find 775 ILCS 5/3-104.1 cited as Illinois's "support dog" protection in housing. It does bar an extra charge for a "guide, hearing, or support dog" — but only for a person who is blind, hearing impaired, or has a physical disability. It is not an emotional support animal statute, and citing it in a dispute about an ESA will not help you. The Integrity Act is the one that applies.

How this connects to your insurance

In our renters insurance article we explained that Illinois holds a dog's owner strictly liable for injuries the dog causes. The Integrity Act adds a twist. Section 15 says a housing provider "shall not be liable for injuries caused by a person's assistance animal" allowed as an accommodation. And Section 10(f) says the provider cannot make you buy special liability coverage for it.

Put those together: your building cannot require you to insure your ESA, and it is not on the hook if your ESA hurts someone. You are. That is not a reason to skip coverage; it is the strongest reason we know of to check that your own renters policy's liability section covers your dog — breed included — before you need it. The longer explanation is at whatisrentersinsurance.com.

Service animals: unchanged

None of the 2026 shift touches trained service animals. HUD's own memo calls requests to waive pet policies for animals trained to perform disability-related tasks "presumptively reasonable." If your dog is trained to do work for a disability, the federal and state routes are both still open.

If a building says no

1. Ask for the reason in writing. The Integrity Act's denial grounds are specific; a vague "we don't do ESAs anymore because of HUD" is not one of them.
2. Put your request in writing too, with a letter from a provider who actually treats you. Use the building's form if it has one; you are not required to.
3. The state route is the main one now. A housing charge with the Illinois Department of Human Rights must be filed within one year of the incident. Within Chicago, a charge can also go to the Chicago Commission on Human Relations. We found no public statement from IDHR about whether its approach to ESA charges has changed since May, and IDHR cross-files housing cases with HUD, so ask when you file.
4. Federal court remains available under the Fair Housing Act for two years, whatever HUD's investigators prioritise.
5. Pay the fee under protest rather than lose the apartment, if that is the choice in front of you, and talk to a fair-housing lawyer about getting it back.

The honest caveat

We are not lawyers. We have quoted the Illinois statute and the HUD memorandum accurately, but how a court or agency would apply either to your building is beyond what a directory can tell you. This area is moving: HUD has said a formal rule is coming, and Illinois legislators could amend the Act in either direction. If anything here changes, this is the article we will update, and the date at the bottom is when it was last checked.

Sources. Assistance Animal Integrity Act, 310 ILCS 120 (Public Act 101-0518), enacted text. Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/3-104.1, current text from the Illinois General Assembly. HUD Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Notice of the Withdrawal of FHEO Guidance Documents, 17 September 2025. HUD FHEO, Enforcement Guidance – Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act, memorandum of Assistant Secretary Craig W. Trainor, 22 May 2026, including its appendix reproducing Henderson v. Five Properties LLC, No. 24-750 (E.D. La. 16 July 2025). Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit, client note on the HUD memo and Illinois associations, 2 June 2026. Illinois Department of Human Rights, charge-process FAQs. All read 14 October 2026.

City Dog Love is a directory, not a law firm. We quote the law so you can check it rather than take our word for it, and we say when something is a federal agency's enforcement position rather than a statute — because in 2026, that difference is the whole story.