When Spartanburg Housing (SH) makes a decision that has a negative impact on an applicant or resident family, the family is often entitled to appeal the decision. Informal hearings provide the applicant and/or resident family a means to hear the details of the reasons for rejection or administrative decision, and an opportunity to present evidence to the contrary if available, and to claim mitigating circumstances where applicable.

Persons with disabilities may request reasonable accommodations to participate in the informal hearing process and SH must consider such accommodations. SH must also consider reasonable accommodation requests pertaining to the reasons for denial if related to the person’s disability. The family is entitled to be represented by an attorney or other designee, at the family’s expense, and to have such person make statements on the family’s behalf. The family is entitled to arrange for an interpreter to attend the hearing, at the expense of the family, or SH, as may be agreed upon by the two parties. If the family does not arrange for their own interpreter, SH is still obligated to provide oral translation services in accordance with its LEP Plan.

APPLICANTS:
SH will only offer informal hearings to applicants for the purpose of disputing denials of admission. SH will give an applicant prompt notice of a decision denying eligibility for admission. The notice will contain a brief statement of the reasons for the SH decision, and will also state that the applicant may request an informal hearing to dispute the decision. The notice will describe how to obtain the informal hearing which includes submitting a request in writing within 10 calendar days.

RESIDENTS:
SH has a grievance procedure in place through which residents of public housing are provided an opportunity to grieve any SH action or failure to act involving the lease or SH policies which adversely affect their rights, duties, welfare, or status. SH's grievance procedure is incorporated by reference in the lease. SH furnishes a copy of the grievance procedure to each tenant and to resident organizations. The grievance procedure is applicable only to individual tenant issues relating to SH. It is not applicable to disputes between tenants not involving SH.