Request Housing Accommodations

Worcester State University is dedicated to making its programs, services and activities accessible to students with disabilities. As such, reasonable accommodations are made to provide students with documented disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in on-campus housing.

This Housing Accommodation procedure, which represents a collaborative effort between Residence Life & Housing, Student Accessibility Services, Counseling Services and Health Services, seeks to provide a student-focused process that allows students to apply for reasonable housing accommodations based on disability status.

Requirements

Students requesting a housing accommodation are required to:

Complete the Registration Form with Student Accessibility Services.
Submit a completed Housing Accommodations Licensed Professional Form. This form must be completed by a Licensed Professional such as a therapist or doctor who has an established relationship with the student.
Review the Student Accessibility Services Policies to learn about Worcester State’s Housing Accommodation, Assistance Animal, and Service Animal Policies.

Students must submit a housing accommodation request each year that they wish to live on campus.

SAS Registration Form

Deadlines

While students can submit a request for housing accommodation at any time, the University has the following priority deadlines that are aligned with the general housing selection process for all students. Requests submitted after the deadlines will be accepted and considered; however, the University may be limited in its ability to implement approved housing accommodation requests submitted after the deadline.

February 1st: Priority deadline for returning students to request housing accommodations for the upcoming school year
May 31st: Priority deadline for incoming first-year students, students returning from a leave of absence, and transfer students to request housing accommodations for the upcoming school year

Additional Information

Worcester State’s Housing Accommodation process works to ensure that disabled students have equal access to the opportunities available to all residential students through campus housing. It is important to note that there are times when requested accommodations may be helpful, desirable, and could improve student’s chances of success, but would not be considered reasonable accommodations for equal access, as they do not directly address a barrier in the housing environment. If, generally speaking, no student has access to the opportunity requested as an accommodation, the request may be regarded as a fundamental alteration to the college housing program and legally not considered “reasonable.”

As examples:

Residential housing is not considered a reduced-distraction environment.All Residence Halls have established Quiet Hours in the evening and early morning. During final exam periods, Quiet Hours are in effect 24 hours each day. The University Library is open to all students as an environment for study.
A housing accommodation does not determine roommates or suitemates, and students cannot request specific roommates or suitemates as an accommodation. Housing accommodations are for the student with a disability only and are considered on an individual basis.
Worcester State cannot guarantee an allergen-free environment in residential housing.Students are encouraged to work with roommates and suitemates, pulling in the Residence Life team for support as needed, to identify ways of sharing space safely. Students with food allergies are also encouraged to work with Dining Services to discuss options for dining safely on-campus.
All students are expected to seek out and discover places on campus and in the community where they can decompress, unwind, and process emotions outside of the room where they sleep.

Assistance Animals

Assistance animals must be approved as a housing accommodation before they are allowed in on-campus housing. Once an assistance animal is conditionally approved by the Housing Accommodation Committee, students must complete an Assistance Animal Student Agreement and submit updated veterinary records prior to the assistance animal moving into the residence hall.

Assistance animals are only allowed in the room the individual is assigned to by Residence Life and Housing and are otherwise not allowed in shared common spaces. An individual may be asked to remove an assistance animal from University housing if the animal is out of control, poses a direct threat to the health and safety of others, causes substantial physical damage to the property of others, or poses an undue financial and administrative burden to the University. If the assistance animal is required to be removed from University housing, the individual may continue to reside on campus without the animal. Student handlers of approved assistance animals are financially responsible for cleaning and repair bills, should their animal cause substantial physical damage or cleaning to university housing facilities.
Assistance animals shall be under the control of the individual at all times. The University is not responsible for the care or supervision of an assistance animal. Assistance Animals may not be left in university housing without their handler overnight. If a student needs to leave campus overnight, they need to make arrangements for their animal to come with them or be boarded off campus. If a student needs to leave campus unexpectedly, (e.g., they are hospitalized), the emergency contact listed on their assistance animal form must come get the animal.
Documentation can be written by a licensed professional who is qualified to speak to your disability diagnosis and the impact of your disability in an academic and/or residential setting. For assistance animal documentation, we look for documentation from a provider with whom you have had an ongoing relationship of at least 3 months.

Documentation should include information about how long the provider has worked with you as a client as well as their name and license information as well as a description of the disability, its impact, and how the assistance provides a therapeutic benefit in relation to specific disability symptoms.

Please be aware that some websites sell certificates, registrations, and licensing documentation for assistance animals to anyone who answers certain questions or participates in a short interview and pays a fee. Letters purchased from the internet for a set price are typically not acceptable forms of documentation. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), documentation from the internet is not sufficiently reliable to establish that a disabled individual qualifies for an Assistance Animal.