# ESA Letter in Grand Rapids, MI: Who Actually Enforces

> Grand Rapids has a human rights ordinance and an advisory commission. For an assistance animal refusal, the routes that bite are the state's and the centre's.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/michigan-emotional-support-animal/grand-rapids/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-08-17
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 200,117
- Households renting: 46%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Capped: 1.5 months' rent
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): Varies by building
- Breed/weight limits common: yes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## Michigan's second city, and its second-largest renter population

Grand Rapids has 80,222 occupied homes and 36,871 of them are rented, 46.0
percent, the largest block of renters in the state outside Detroit. Median
gross rent is $1,266, which is also the number that fixes what a landlord
here may hold: Michigan caps deposits at one and a half months' rent, about
$1,899.

The city's rental stock leans old and small (single-family houses,
duplexes, converted two-flats), so an accommodation request usually lands
with an owner or a small management company rather than a regional leasing
office. There is rarely a form for it. Write it anyway.

## The ordinance, the commission, and what each can do

Grand Rapids has a human rights ordinance amending Title IX of the city
code, and a **Community Relations Commission** attached to it. Before
counting on that route, read what the commission says it does: give advice
and assistance to elected officials, discourage and prevent discriminatory
practices, provide education on community resources, and issue reports and
public service announcements.

That is an advisory brief. It is not an investigator taking your file and
ordering a landlord to allow your dog. Staff support sits in the city's
Equity and Engagement Department, whose Equity Analyst is the board liaison
on 616-456-3575.

The city also does not currently publish a working complaint page for the
ordinance, the link that once served one now returns an error. So a Grand
Rapids renter should not plan a case around a city process. Plan it around
the two routes that do enforce.

## The two that do

The **Michigan Department of Civil Rights** enforces the Persons with
Disabilities Civil Rights Act statewide, takes complaints on
1-800-482-3604, and can put a matter before the Michigan Civil Rights
Commission, which may order a landlord to cease and desist and to take
other action. Its filing window is **180 days**.

The **Fair Housing Center of West Michigan** is in the city, on
616-451-2980, and directly serves twelve counties including Kent. It is
private, it investigates using testers, and assistance animals sit among
the subjects it publishes resources on. For a refusal that is hard to prove
from the inside (the unit that becomes unavailable after the animal is
mentioned), a tester is the thing a complaint form cannot replace.

They are not alternatives to each other. A centre investigation can support
a state complaint, and the 180 days runs regardless of who else is looking
at it.

The practical order for most people is: put the request in writing, wait a
reasonable and documented interval, then call the centre and file with the
state rather than choosing between them. Neither asks you to have decided
whether the refusal was deliberate. That is what an investigation is for.

## What the state duty actually says

MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) makes it unlawful in a real estate transaction to
"[r]efuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices,
or services, when the accommodations may be necessary to afford the person
with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy residential real
property." The federal twin is 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(a).

Two things follow that matter in a city of small landlords. First, a no-pets
clause is a rule, and rules are exactly what the statute is about bending.
Second, refusing costs the landlord something: MCL 37.1102(2) requires the
accommodation "unless the person demonstrates that the accommodation would
impose an undue hardship": the demonstration is theirs to make, not yours
to disprove.

## Breed rules and the insurer's list

Breed and weight conditions are common in Grand Rapids leases, and when you
ask where they come from the answer is often an insurance policy rather
than a preference.

That is worth surfacing early, because it changes the conversation from a
refusal to a problem to be solved, and because a categorical list is not
the individualised assessment the accommodation duty contemplates. The
Fair Housing Center of West Michigan's counterpart across the state lists
"Your assistance animal can't be that breed" among the sentences that
should make a renter suspicious. Michigan's own leading case on assistance
animals, *Riverbrook v Fabode*, started with a breed ban in a
manufactured-housing community.

## Money, and where the cap stops

Whatever the lease calls it, money that comes back to you if the unit does
is a security deposit in Michigan, MCL 554.601(d), and the total is
capped at one and a half months' rent by MCL 554.602. In Grand Rapids that
is roughly $1,899 for everything held, refundable pet deposit included.

The act also limits what the deposit can be spent on: actual damage beyond
the normal course of habitation, and rent or utility arrears (MCL 554.607).
None of it can be waived in the lease (MCL 554.606).

For an approved assistance animal the pet portion should not be charged at
all, because a charge imposed because of the animal is a charge imposed
because of the disability, MCL 37.1502(1)(b). Monthly pet rent is a
different question: Michigan does not cap it, and neither does Grand
Rapids, so for a pet it is a matter of negotiation and for an assistance
animal it is the accommodation duty that answers it.

## Vouchers, and the Housing Commission

The **Grand Rapids Housing Commission** administers Housing Choice Vouchers
for tenants renting privately owned property across Kent County, along with
project-based vouchers tied to specific buildings.

Two points for a voucher holder with an animal. The accommodation duty runs
against whoever the landlord is, private or public, and where the Housing
Commission is itself your housing provider the request goes to it as well
as to the site manager. And source of income is now among the
characteristics the Michigan Department of Civil Rights lists as protected,
so a landlord refusing you because of the voucher is a separate complaint
from a landlord refusing the animal, sometimes both are on the table at
once.

## The letter, and the case that tested one

Michigan is one of the few states where a court has examined ESA
documentation closely, and Grand Rapids renters get the benefit of the
answer.

In *Riverbrook v Fabode* the Court of Appeals declined to treat a letter as
self-proving. The counsellor who wrote it had spoken to the tenant once by
telephone, reviewed no medical records, run no testing and provided no
counselling; the letter named a condition that had not yet been diagnosed
and never explained what the dog did. The Michigan Supreme Court then
confirmed the limit on the other side: neither the Fair Housing Act nor MCL
37.1506a(1)(b) requires expert-witness testimony.

So the target is not exotic. A licensed professional who has actually
evaluated you, a real condition, and a sentence about what the animal does
for it.

## Counting the days

**180 days** to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. **Three years** in
state court if the complaint falls outside that and carries no federal
jurisdiction, on MDCR's own account. **One year** to HUD under 24 C.F.R.
§ 103.35.

Michigan gives your landlord no deadline to answer. Nothing stops your 180
days while you wait. Date the request, keep the refusal, and if you need
help before then, Legal Aid of Western Michigan covers seventeen counties
from Grand Rapids on (616) 774-0672.

## What Grand Rapids landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- Cannot refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where it may be necessary to give a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy residential real property: MCL 37.1506a(1)(b), and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(a) federally.
- Cannot rely on a no-pets policy to refuse an assistance animal: the Michigan Department of Civil Rights gives "[a]llowing a service or support animal in a no-pet complex" as its own example of an accommodation state and federal law require.
- Cannot treat the request as settled by the animal's breed or size where the animal is an approved assistance animal: the accommodation analysis is individual, and a blanket rule is not that analysis.
- Cannot demand that the tenant register the animal or produce a state identification card. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights runs a voluntary identification programme for trained service animals and tells anyone "required to obtain service animal identification or register a service animal by a landlord" to file a complaint.
- Cannot require expert-witness testimony or a particular kind of professional: the Michigan Supreme Court vacated any reading of Riverbrook to that effect, holding that neither 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) nor MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) contains such a requirement.
- Cannot ask about the existence, nature or severity of a disability as a general screening question, 24 C.F.R. § 100.202(c), which allows only defined inquiries made of every applicant.
- Cannot hold more than one and a half months' rent in deposits from any tenant, a refundable pet deposit included, because MCL 554.601(d) defines a security deposit to include any amount returnable on the condition the unit is returned as the lease requires, and MCL 554.602 caps the total.
- Cannot use a deposit for anything but actual damage beyond normal habitation and rent or utility arrears, MCL 554.607, and cannot contract out of the act at all, because MCL 554.606 says its requirements may not be waived.
- Cannot write a lease clause that discriminates in violation of the PWDCRA: MCL 554.633(1)(c) prohibits it, and MCL 554.636(1) lets the tenant void the lease and recover $250 or actual damages, whichever is greater, once written notice has gone unremedied for 20 days.
- Cannot refuse to rent, or discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of the tenancy, because of a disability: MCL 37.1502(1)(a) and (b).
- Cannot refuse a reasonable modification made at the tenant's expense, though it may require restoration of the interior on move-out where that is reasonable, MCL 37.1506a(1)(a).
- Cannot start a clock the law does not give it: no Michigan statute sets a deadline for a landlord's answer to an accommodation request, so a request left unanswered is a fact to record, and the tenant's own filing deadlines keep running while they wait.

**Can:**
- Must show undue hardship if it refuses: MCL 37.1102(2) requires accommodation "unless the person demonstrates that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship", which puts the demonstration on the housing provider.
- May ask for reliable disability-related information where the disability and the need are not obvious: the standard the Michigan Court of Appeals applied in Riverbrook v Fabode, drawn from the 2004 joint statement of HUD and the Department of Justice.
- Is not required to accept an animal whose tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others. 24 C.F.R. § 100.202(d), but that is a judgement about the individual animal's conduct, not about its breed.
- Is exempt only in narrow circumstances: MCL 37.1503 excepts renting in a building with no more than two families where the owner or their immediate family lives in one of them, or renting a room in a dwelling the lessor lives in. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights states the same exclusion as "[o]wner-occupied one or two family dwellings".

## How to get an ESA letter in Grand Rapids

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Grand Rapids. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for Michigan clients who reviews your situation in a telehealth evaluation. (Telehealth evaluation)
3. **Complete your evaluation**, The professional evaluates whether an emotional support animal alleviates symptoms of a condition recognized in the DSM-5. Honest evaluations, not everyone qualifies. (Most of Our Applicants Qualify)
4. **Receive your signed letter**, Your letter arrives on the professional's letterhead with their license number: the documentation Michigan landlords may lawfully request. (Typically within days of approval)
5. **Send it to your landlord**, Submit the letter with a short reasonable-accommodation request. Pet fees, pet deposits, and breed limits no longer apply to your animal in Grand Rapids. (Protection under FHA + state law)

## Conditions that can qualify for an ESA

No fixed government list exists. A licensed professional evaluates whether an animal alleviates symptoms of a DSM-5-recognized condition, commonly:

- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Major depressive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Panic disorder
- Social anxiety disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Phobias with housing impact
- Chronic stress affecting daily function

## Housing help in Grand Rapids

- [Fair Housing Center of West Michigan](https://fhcwm.org/) (fair housing)
- [Michigan Department of Civil Rights](https://www.michigan.gov/mdcr/enforcement/fair-housing) (state agency)
- [Legal Aid of Western Michigan](https://lawestmi.org/) (legal aid)
- [Grand Rapids Housing Commission](https://www.grhousing.org/) (housing authority)
- [Grand Rapids Community Relations Commission](https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/government/boards-commissions/community-relations-commission/) (city agency)
- [City of Grand Rapids Equity and Engagement Department](https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/government/departments/equity-and-engagement/) (city agency)

## Frequently asked questions

### Who enforces fair housing for a Grand Rapids renter?

In practice, the state and a private centre. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights enforces the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, takes complaints on 1-800-482-3604, and requires them within 180 days of the act. The Fair Housing Center of West Michigan, based in the city on 616-451-2980, investigates independently across Kent and eleven other counties and lists assistance animals among the subjects it covers. The city's own Community Relations Commission describes its role as advising elected officials, discouraging and preventing discriminatory practices, and providing education, not as investigating and deciding individual complaints.

### Can my Grand Rapids landlord say no because of the dog's breed?

Not as a way of avoiding the accommodation question. Under MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) a housing provider may not "[r]efuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when the accommodations may be necessary to afford the person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy residential real property", and a breed restriction is a rule like any other. The refusal has to rest on this animal, conduct, or an undue hardship the landlord demonstrates under MCL 37.1102(2), rather than on a category. Michigan's own leading assistance-animal case, Riverbrook v Fabode, began with a breed ban in a manufactured-housing community, which is why the point is worth putting in writing early.

### How much can a Grand Rapids landlord hold as a deposit?

One and a half months' rent in total, under MCL 554.602: roughly $1,899 at the city's $1,266 median gross rent. That ceiling includes a refundable pet deposit, because MCL 554.601(d) defines a security deposit to cover any amount "returnable to the tenant on condition of return of the rental unit by the tenant in condition as required by the rental agreement". A deposit may only be used for actual damage beyond normal habitation and for rent or utility arrears (MCL 554.607), and MCL 554.606 says these requirements cannot be waived by the lease.

### Does the Grand Rapids human rights ordinance give me a complaint route?

The city has a human rights ordinance amending Title IX of the city code, and the Community Relations Commission is the board attached to it, with staff support from the Equity and Engagement Department. What the city does not currently publish is a working complaint page for it, the link that used to serve one returns an error. So the honest advice for a Grand Rapids renter is to treat the Michigan Department of Civil Rights as the enforcement route, use the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan for investigation and advocacy, and contact the Commission's staff liaison if you want the city to know.

### What should my ESA letter contain for a Grand Rapids tenancy?

The same thing Michigan courts have already looked at. In Riverbrook v Fabode the Court of Appeals refused to treat a letter as self-proving, after the counsellor who wrote it testified she had spoken to the tenant once by telephone, reviewed no records, run no testing and provided no counselling; the letter named a condition that was not yet a diagnosis and never said what the animal did. The Michigan Supreme Court then held that no expert-witness testimony is required by the Fair Housing Act or MCL 37.1506a(1)(b). Aim for a licensed professional who has evaluated you, a real condition, and a plain statement of the animal's role.

### I have a Housing Choice Voucher. Does that change the animal question?

Not the accommodation analysis. The Grand Rapids Housing Commission administers Housing Choice Vouchers for tenants renting privately owned property in Kent County, along with project-based vouchers tied to particular buildings. Whoever the landlord is, the duty at MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(a) applies to them, and where the Housing Commission is itself your housing provider the request goes to it as well as to any site manager. Michigan's civil rights act now also lists source of income among protected characteristics, so a refusal to rent because you hold a voucher is its own separate problem.

### How long do I have after a refusal in Grand Rapids?

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights says a complaint "must be filed with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights within 180 days following the alleged act of discrimination", and points anything older that lacks federal jurisdiction to state court within three years. HUD's clock is one year under 24 C.F.R. § 103.35. Michigan law gives your landlord no deadline to reply to an accommodation request, and waiting for a reply does not pause your 180 days, so record the date you asked, the date they refused, or the date it became clear no answer was coming.

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Get evaluated by a licensed provider: https://my.supportanimal.com/qualify?sa_source=blog&sa_medium=blog&sa_campaign=esa-guides&sa_content=markdown&ref=blog&sa_term=michigan-emotional-support-animal%2Fgrand-rapids