I Am Disabled. Why Can’t I Keep My Walker Outside My Front Door?

Q: I am 98 several years aged and count on a walker. For a 12 months, I have stored it in the hallway outside my studio apartment, which I lease from a shareholder in an East Village co-op. The walker doesn’t obstruct other apartments, or restrict accessibility to the elevator or stairwell. Nevertheless, I’ve been educated that I must continue to keep it inside of my apartment. But this will make it challenging for me to get out since the room is slim and intricate by a self-closing doorway. The problem could be perilous in an crisis. Can the board make an exception for a disabled person?

A: As a tenant with a disability, you have to have to be in a position to safely and securely enter and exit your condominium. If you require a sensible accommodation for that to take place, your housing company, which in this circumstance is in the end the co-op board, desires to present you with a person. Nonetheless, the board has a further similarly crucial obligation to the security of citizens: It should stick to metropolis fireplace and building codes to hold hallways totally free of obstructions and obtain to exit routes distinct.

“At the end of the day, this is a authentic point, the question of egress routes becoming very clear,” claimed John W. Egan, a attorney and associate in the New York Metropolis business of the agency Seyfarth Shaw, in which he qualified prospects the office’s incapacity-obtain follow. “There could be a authentic difficulty and it could be a legal responsibility issue if they are permitting obstructions” in the hallways.

So, you will need to have a true dialogue with administration. The New York City Human Legal rights Legislation calls for functions to have a cooperative dialogue about problems such as this a person. Create a letter to the proprietor of your apartment, the handling agent and the board requesting that they perform with you to find a resolution that lets you to safely enter and exit your apartment, but also retains the constructing safe in the celebration of an crisis.

“There is usually a option,” Mr. Egan explained. “Maybe it is buying a distinct walker. Probably it’s putting it someplace in the unit that is not immediately alongside the egress route.”

Maybe there is a spot outside your apartment doorway exactly where a walker could safely and securely in shape. Or probably yours could be hung in these types of a way that you can readily obtain it. Should you require a different walker, you could ask the setting up or your landlord to spend for it, as beneath metropolis legislation the housing supplier should deal with the charge. No matter, the developing demands to perform with you to fix this dilemma.

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