# ESA Letter in Worland, WY: The Enforcer in Another State

> Wyoming's Fair Housing Act hands every complaint to an authority HUD never accepted. What a Worland ESA letter request needs when no agency is listening.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/wyoming-emotional-support-animal/worland/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-09-10
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 4,765
- Households renting: 29.3%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): No cap; nonrefundable allowed
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): Landlord sets it; no statute
- Breed/weight limits common: yes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## The lowest rent of the twenty, and the longest reach for help

Worland is the seat of Washakie County, a town of **4,765** in the Big Horn
Basin. Of its **2,215** occupied households, **648** are rented (± 127),
**29.3 percent**, a shade above the **28.2 percent** renting statewide. That
is 17th of the twenty Wyoming cities covered here by number of renting
households, 13th by share.

The number that stands out is the rent. Median gross rent here is **$703 ±
$57** on the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey five-year
estimates: the lowest of the twenty, and roughly $289 under the **$992**
Wyoming median.

Then the part that has nothing to do with money. If a Worland renter is
refused an assistance animal and wants somebody official to look into it,
the nearest body that will actually investigate sits nowhere in this state.
This page is about why, and about the one step that does not depend on it.

## Every administrative job in the Act belongs to one phrase

Wyoming enacted a full Fair Housing Act in 2015. **W.S. 40-26-114 through
40-26-135** build the whole machine: receive a complaint, investigate it,
attempt conciliation, adopt rules, decide whether reasonable cause exists,
issue a charge, hold a hearing, order relief, assess civil penalties.

Read those sections in a row and one phrase keeps coming back. Not "the department." Not "the
commission." **"The enforcing authority."** Every administrative function in the chapter is handed
to it, and nowhere does the Act name an office. It defines a category and leaves the filling of it
to somebody else.

## What W.S. 40-26-102(a)(viii) actually requires

The definition, in full:

> "'Enforcing authority' means a Wyoming state agency or nonprofit incorporated in Wyoming that has
> been **accepted as an enforcing authority for Wyoming by the department of housing and urban
> development**."

Three conditions, and the last does the damage. A candidate must be a state
agency or a Wyoming-incorporated nonprofit, and then HUD has to accept it.
Wyoming cannot fill the post on its own; the statute makes the final move a
federal one.

That move has not been made. In January 2025 the Wyoming Advisory Committee to the **U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights** reported that the Governor "has not yet assigned enforcement authority of the
Wyoming Fair Housing Act to any state or local entity," and that HUD "has not certified that the
Wyoming Fair Housing Act is 'substantially equivalent' to the federal Fair Housing Act." Without
that certification HUD has assigned no enforcement under its Fair Housing Assistance Program, no
FHAP grant reaches a Wyoming state or local government, and no FHIP grant reaches a Wyoming
fair-housing organization or nonprofit.

So the definition is satisfied by nobody.

## Wyoming's own paperwork says the same thing

The Wyoming Secretary of State publishes the roster of every agency in the
state with rulemaking authority, **81** of them. There is no fair-housing
agency on that list, no human-rights commission, no civil-rights division.
The closest thing to a rights body is the Department of Workforce Services,
which handles employment complaints under a different chapter and has no
housing function.

## What quietly switches off

Start with the deadline, because it is the first thing a search turns up.
**W.S. 40-26-118(a)** gives an aggrieved person one year from the
discriminatory housing practice to file a complaint. File it where? With the
enforcing authority. In Wyoming today that is a deadline to file with
nobody.

The rest follows it down: no investigation, no conciliation conference, no
reasonable-cause determination, no charge, no hearing, no civil penalty.
Those sections are not repealed. They are unattached, waiting for a body
nobody has designated.

The practical result is what a Worland renter runs into. Wyoming residents, the USCCR found, "are
required to submit their complaint to the HUD's Denver Regional Office in the neighboring state of
Colorado, rather than a local or state enforcement agency within Wyoming." For a town this far into
the Big Horn Basin, that is not a technicality. It is a real access problem, and pretending
otherwise would help nobody here.

## Worland is not on the housing authority list either

Worth saying plainly, because most advice assumes otherwise. Worland has
**no public housing authority**. The Wyoming 211 directory lists six for the
whole state (Cheyenne, Casper, Jackson and Teton County, Rock Springs,
Evanston and Hanna), none of them here or anywhere in Washakie County. The
City of Worland's website carries no housing pages either.

What exists reaches the whole state rather than this town. **Wyoming Housing
Network** offers housing counselling; **Legal Aid of Wyoming** publishes a
housing section and takes questions from any county, Washakie included.
Neither the city nor the county runs a housing program.

## Strong on the page, unstaffed in practice

Two different sentences, and they must not be collapsed into one. Wyoming's *text* is better than
most. **W.S. 35-13-201(c)** says a person "shall not be discriminated against in the
leasing or rental of residential property because the person has an assistance animal, which shall
be permitted in leased or rented residential property." **W.S. 35-13-205(a)(iv)** defines that
animal to include one that "provides emotional support that alleviates one (1) or more identified
symptoms or effects of a person's disability", emotional support named outright, no training
demanded. And **W.S. 40-26-107(c)(ii)** makes it discrimination to refuse "a reasonable
accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services if the accommodation may be necessary to
afford the individual equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling."

None of that is switched off by the missing enforcing authority. The duty on
a Worland landlord is the duty the statutes describe. **W.S. 40-26-107(f)**
sets its outer edge: no accommodation is owed where the tenancy would be a
direct threat to the health or safety of others, or would cause substantial
physical damage to their property. A landlord who reads an empty enforcement
office as an absent obligation has read the wrong thing into it.

## The step that does not require travelling anywhere

This is where a Worland tenant's leverage genuinely sits, and not by
coincidence, it is the step with no mileage attached.

Put the request in writing. Address it to whoever makes the leasing
decisions. Say you have a disability, say you need this animal as an
accommodation to a no-pets rule or a pet charge, and name the provisions it
runs on: **W.S. 35-13-201(c)**, **W.S. 40-26-107(c)(ii)**, and **42 U.S.C. §
3604(f)(3)(B)** beneath both. Attach the documentation, date it, keep a
copy, note how you sent it.

That does three things. It gives a landlord who simply did not know the rule an easy way to say yes.
It removes the "nobody ever asked me" answer. And if it is refused, it is the record a court reads
later: made in Worland, at no cost, without leaving Washakie County.

## If it is refused, the forum is a courtroom, not a counter

The Act's court route survived the missing agency intact. **W.S. 40-26-139(a)** lets an aggrieved
person file a civil action in district court "not later than the second year after the date of the
occurrence or the termination of an alleged discriminatory housing practice," and subsection (c)
makes it available regardless of any complaint under 40-26-118. No exhaustion, which matters when
there is nothing to exhaust.

**W.S. 40-26-140** lets a court award actual **and punitive** damages, reasonable attorney's fees
and costs, plus injunctive relief. Read **W.S. 40-26-143** in the same sitting: fees go to the
prevailing party, costs against the nonprevailing party, whichever side that turns out to be. Take
that step with advice; Legal Aid of Wyoming is where to start.

## The enforcer is in another state; the document is not

Every route above: the written request, the out-of-state complaint, the
district court filing, needs the same thing in hand first, and it is not a
certificate bought online. **W.S. 35-13-205(a)(iv)** wants one finding that
a disability is present and a second that this animal alleviates an
**identified** symptom or effect of it. Both belong to somebody licensed to
make them.

If a clinician already treats you, ask them first; it costs least and
carries most. The friction is real out here: this state's specialist
mental-health capacity sits in Cheyenne, Casper and Laramie, a new-patient
appointment reachable from Washakie County can be a long wait, and a
practitioner who has seen you twice may decline to certify a disability
rather than record more than they have grounds for. That is professional,
and honest.

Where that door does not open, a licensed evaluation puts the same
examination on the calendar: a licensed professional decides whether both
findings hold and writes them up, or says they do not. Either ending is
possible, which is why paperwork from a real assessment carries weight, and
why **W.S. 35-13-203(b)** makes knowingly and intentionally misrepresenting
an animal a misdemeanor.

Worland cannot move the enforcer any closer. It can put the document on the
landlord's desk tomorrow.

## What Worland landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- Cannot refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where it may be necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling: W.S. 40-26-107(c)(ii).
- Cannot discriminate in the leasing or rental of residential property because the person has an assistance animal, W.S. 35-13-201(c). Wyoming defines that animal to include one that provides emotional support, at W.S. 35-13-205(a)(iv).
- Cannot treat an assistance animal as a pet for the purpose of a deposit or a monthly charge. Wyoming's landlord-tenant statute says nothing about animals at all, so the charge comes off under W.S. 40-26-107(b) and (c)(ii) and 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f) rather than under a deposit rule.
- Cannot discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of a rental, or in the services and facilities provided with it, because of disability: W.S. 40-26-107(b). This is the provision that reaches recurring pet rent.
- Cannot require training, certification or registration of an assistance animal. W.S. 35-13-205(a)(iv)'s emotional-support branch has no training element, and no Wyoming registry exists.
- Cannot interfere with the rights in W.S. 35-13-201(a) through (c), doing so is a misdemeanor under W.S. 35-13-203(a), with a fine of up to $750.
- Cannot keep a deposit without delivering a written itemization within thirty days of termination, or fifteen days after receiving the renter's new mailing address, whichever is later: W.S. 1-21-1208(a).
- Cannot take a nonrefundable deposit silently. W.S. 1-21-1207 requires the rental agreement to state that a portion is nonrefundable and requires written notice when it is taken.

**Can:**
- May hold the tenant liable for damage the assistance animal actually does to the premises, W.S. 35-13-201(c) says so expressly. That is a bill for real damage, not a charge in advance.
- May take a further thirty days to return a deposit if there is damage to the unit, making sixty days lawful in that case, W.S. 1-21-1208(a).
- May decline where the tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others, W.S. 40-26-107(f).
- May be outside the Wyoming Fair Housing Act's disability duty if the building holds four families or fewer and the owner lives in one of them, W.S. 40-26-110(b) exempts sections 40-26-105 through 40-26-109. W.S. 35-13-201(c) and the federal Act are not switched off by it.
- May charge a nonrefundable pet deposit to a tenant with an ordinary pet, with no cap in dollars or months, provided it is disclosed. Wyoming sets no deposit ceiling anywhere.

## How to get an ESA letter in Worland

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Worland. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for Wyoming 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 Wyoming 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 Worland. (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 Worland

- [City of Worland](https://www.cityofworlandwy.gov/) (city government)
- [Washakie County](https://www.washakiecountywy.gov/) (county government)
- [Wyoming Housing Network](https://whninc.org/housing-counseling/) (housing counseling)
- [Legal Aid of Wyoming - Housing](https://www.lawyoming.org/housing) (legal aid)

## Frequently asked questions

### Which Wyoming agency takes a housing discrimination complaint from Worland?

None does. The Wyoming Fair Housing Act hands every administrative job - taking the complaint, investigating, conciliating, finding reasonable cause, issuing a charge, holding a hearing - to "the enforcing authority," and W.S. 40-26-102(a)(viii) defines that as a Wyoming state agency or a Wyoming nonprofit "that has been accepted as an enforcing authority for Wyoming by the department of housing and urban development." The Wyoming Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reported in January 2025 that the Governor "has not yet assigned enforcement authority of the Wyoming Fair Housing Act to any state or local entity." No entity has been accepted, so the office the statute keeps referring to does not exist.

### Then what does the one-year deadline in W.S. 40-26-118 apply to?

To a filing with the enforcing authority - which is why it currently runs to nobody. It is worth knowing the number exists so you are not misled by it. The route that does work runs to a court instead: W.S. 40-26-139(a) allows a civil action in district court not later than the second year after the discriminatory housing practice occurs or terminates, and subsection (c) makes it available whether or not any 40-26-118 complaint was ever filed. Nothing to exhaust, because there is nothing to exhaust it with.

### Is there a public housing authority in Worland?

No. The Wyoming 211 housing authority directory lists six for the whole state - Cheyenne, Casper, Jackson and Teton County, Rock Springs, Evanston and Hanna - and none of them is in Worland or Washakie County. The City of Worland's own website carries no housing links either. What is available statewide is Wyoming Housing Network for housing counselling and Legal Aid of Wyoming, which publishes a housing section and answers questions from any county.

### If nobody enforces the Wyoming Fair Housing Act, does its text still matter?

Yes, and this is the distinction to hold on to. The words of the Act are in force. W.S. 40-26-107(c)(ii) makes it discrimination to refuse "a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services if the accommodation may be necessary to afford the individual equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling," and W.S. 40-26-140 lets a court award actual and punitive damages, fees and costs. What Wyoming lacks is an administrative body to process a complaint, not a rule that says an assistance animal may be refused. A landlord who reads the missing agency as a missing duty has misread it.

### Where does a Worland complaint physically have to go?

Out of state. The same USCCR report found that HUD "has not certified that the Wyoming Fair Housing Act is 'substantially equivalent' to the federal Fair Housing Act," so no Fair Housing Assistance Program or Fair Housing Initiatives Program grant reaches any Wyoming government or nonprofit, and that Wyoming residents "are required to submit their complaint to the HUD's Denver Regional Office in the neighboring state of Colorado." From the Big Horn Basin that is a long way and another state. It is the single strongest practical reason to make the written request to your landlord carefully first.

### Does Wyoming law actually name emotional support animals, or only trained ones?

It names them. W.S. 35-13-205(a)(iv) defines an "assistance animal" as one that works, assists or performs tasks for a person with a disability "or provides emotional support that alleviates one (1) or more identified symptoms or effects of a person's disability." There is no training requirement on that second branch. The section opens "As used in this article," and W.S. 35-13-201(c) - the sentence about leasing and renting residential property - sits in the same article, so the definition reaches housing directly.

### Worland has the lowest rent in Wyoming. Does a pet charge really matter here?

Proportionally it matters more, not less. Median gross rent in Worland is $703 ± $57 on the 2020-2024 ACS five-year estimates, against $992 statewide, so a monthly pet premium takes a bigger bite of a Worland budget than the same figure would in Cheyenne or Cody. Wyoming caps deposits at nothing and W.S. 1-21-1207 permits a nonrefundable portion if it is disclosed in writing. Neither of those rules applies to an assistance animal, because the charge comes off through W.S. 40-26-107(b) and W.S. 35-13-201(c) rather than through the lease statute.

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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=wyoming-emotional-support-animal%2Fworland