Your ESA in the Dorm When Campus Empties: Who Is Allowed to Move the Animal, and How Long They Have

You are approved. The animal is in your room, the paperwork went through months ago, and now there is a closure notice, or a storm cone, or a break date you did not plan around. The question in your head is probably about your rights. The question that will actually decide the next six hours is narrower and it is already answered in writing: who is permitted to move this animal, how long do they have, and where does the animal go if nobody comes.

That answer is not in a statute. It is in the animal agreement you signed with your own institution, and it is different at every school. This page is about how to find it, what the published versions of it look like at fifteen named institutions, and what to do about the one case none of those documents was written for.

Three Things This Page Will Not Do

No verdict on your accommodation. Nothing here tells you what your school must allow, what it cannot do, or how any request of yours would come out. Whether a particular accommodation is reasonable is an individualized determination made by the institution and reviewable by bodies outside it, and this site has no standing to make it. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. Nothing on this page implies anything about whether your need is real; that is not a question this site is in a position to have an opinion about.

No claim about universities in general. Fifteen campus animal policies, one campus housing contract and one campus emergency-management page were retrieved and read on August 24, 2026, seventeen documents at fourteen institutions plus Florida State University. Six of them carry the same sentence, near enough word for word, in their emergency sections, which tells you the language circulates between institutions rather than that it is universal. Every number, every fallback and every disclaimer on this page carries the name of the institution that published it. If your school is not named here, that means we did not read your school’s policy.

No new form. This site already publishes a printable owner-to-helper instrument, on our neighbor pet emergency access agreement, and the legal frame for what such documents reach on our pet authority documents page. The campus setting changes exactly one thing about those fields: your counterparty is not a neighbor who can decline, it is an institution whose own form is the controlling document, and it already names the person and the deadline. Read the institution’s form rather than writing a competing one.

The Sentence That Decides It

Our page on being the pet sitter when the evacuation order comes works out the same problem from the other side, and states the site’s own reading of the statutes it quotes in one line: the duty can follow custody, and the authority does not. That page is written for the person holding somebody else’s animal.

This page is the owner’s half of it, and the shape is inverted. Here is this site’s own reading of the fifteen campus agreements below, marked as ours because no policy read for this page announces it:

Your animal agreement moves the duty to you and sets the deadline, and then it hands the authority to somebody who is not on campus.

All fifteen put the animal’s care on the student in one form of words or another. Six of the fifteen go further and require the student to name a specific person for an emergency: the University of Chicago, the University of New Haven, the University of San Francisco, the University of San Diego, the University of Georgia and Boston University. Five of those six either require that person to live off campus or bar someone who lives on it. A seventh, SUNY Geneseo, requires evacuation arrangements to be filed with residence life rather than a named person. Read together, that arrangement only works if one specific person, who by design does not live where you live, is reachable and mobile at the moment campus empties.

That is not a criticism of any institution. It is the structure, and knowing it is the structure is what tells you which line on the form to think hardest about.

Read Your Own Agreement First: Four Clauses to Find

Get the document. Not the summary page, the signed agreement. Your campus disability services or accessibility office holds one copy and your housing office usually holds another, and either will send it to you if you ask. Then find these four things. This ordering is this site’s own; no policy read for this page publishes a checklist.

1. The emergency-contact clause. Look for who you named, whether the policy requires that person to live off campus, whether it sets a number of hours, and whether it requires a second person. Some do. The University of Chicago’s animal policy, read August 24, 2026, requires both: “The emergency handler must reside off-campus and must be available to remove the animal in a timely manner, and to provide needed care. The student also must provide contact information for an additional back-up handler in the event the emergency handler is not available.”

2. The overnight and break clause. This is the one that catches students in December rather than in September, and it is covered in its own section below.

3. The disclaimer clause. Nine of the fifteen policies read for this page on August 24, 2026 carry a sentence saying university personnel will not care for or will not remove your animal, in one wording or another: the University of Georgia, the University of Cincinnati, Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, SUNY Geneseo, Georgia State University, Iowa State University, Loyola University Maryland and Evangel University. The other six carry no sentence of that shape: Boston University, the University of San Diego, the University of San Francisco, the University of New Haven, the University of Chicago and Florida State University’s Office of Accessibility Services page. Two of those six do publish a non-liability sentence about something else, and the scope is the whole point. The University of New Haven’s sits in a paragraph about pesticides, pest control devices, de-icing materials and cleaning supplies, and reads: “The University is not responsible/liable for harm to an Approved ESA permitted to reside with an Owner in university housing.” The University of San Francisco’s policy states, in its general expectations rather than in any emergency section, that USF cannot guarantee the health and safety of the ESA. That is a count of those fifteen documents on that date and not a claim about any other school. Find yours and read it before an alarm rather than during one, and if there is no such sentence in yours, treat that as a question for your housing office rather than as an assurance.

4. The fallback destination. Some institutions name where the animal goes if nobody comes. If yours does, you want to have read it. If yours does not, that is the question to put in writing to your housing office now.

The Clocks, Institution by Institution

These are published terms at named institutions, all read on August 24, 2026. They are not law, they are contract and policy, and each one binds only the students of that institution.

University of San Francisco, three hours. Its Student Disability Services policy states: “Owners must designate an Emergency Contact who is able to remove the ESA within 3 hours if necessary.” The same page states: “This policy was revised in June 2026.”

University of San Diego, six hours for dogs and up to twelve for other species. Its Policy on Emotional Support Animals in University Housing requires contact information for an alternative caregiver who will remove the animal if the owner cannot care for it, and continues: “The caregiver/emergency contact must reside off campus and must be available to remove the ESA in a timely manner appropriate for the animal species and needed (generally within 6 hours for dogs and no more than 12 hours for other animals).” The same bullet adds a maintenance duty most students will not have noticed: “The name and contact information for the alternative caregiver/emergency contact must be confirmed and/or updated each semester.”

University of Georgia, twelve hours, and two people. University Housing’s ESA policy states: “The resident is required to identify a minimum of two alternate caregivers in case of emergency. These alternative caregivers should be prepared to take custody of the ESA within 12 hours’ notice and cannot be another on-campus resident.” The sentence immediately after it is the one to read twice: “In circumstances where an alternative caregiver must take custody, the institution does not accept liability or responsibility for the animal prior to the alternative caretaker taking custody.”

University of New Haven, twenty-four hours. Its Accessibility Resources Center page states: “The Owner will provide emergency contact information for an individual should the Owner be unable to care for the ESA at any time.” It then narrows who that individual can be, and sets the clock and the consequence in the same short passage, which appears later in this page.

University of Chicago, a timely manner, plus a back-up. Quoted above. No number, and a required second person, which is a different design choice from a number.

Boston University, a written plan with three named contents. Its Disability & Access Services animal policy requires, under the heading Emergency Plan: “Owner must provide DAS with an updated formal emergency plan regarding the evacuation of the ESA should the owner become unable to care for the ESA. This plan must include the name, contact information and plan for removal of the ESA.” No hours, but the most specific description of what the arrangement has to contain among the documents read here.

And several institutions with no clock at all, where what is published instead is a disclaimer. The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s University Housing ESA policy states: “University Housing is not responsible for the care or evacuation of an ESA during an emergency (e.g., fire alarm), or any harm, stress, or death caused to an animal in the event of an emergency.”

One sentence recurs, near enough word for word, at six of the institutions read here: Georgia State University, the University of Cincinnati, Purdue University, Iowa State University, Evangel University and SUNY Geneseo. Purdue’s version: “Emergency personnel will determine whether to remove the animal and may not be held responsible for the care, damage to, or loss of the animal.” SUNY Geneseo’s is the same sentence written about an emotional support animal specifically: “Emergency personnel will determine whether to remove the emotional support animal and may not be held responsible for the care, damage to, or loss of the emotional support animal.” Iowa State’s Department of Residence opens its version with the responsibility rather than the disclaimer: “Owner is responsible for the animal in all emergency situations.” University of Georgia Housing writes its own, shorter version and attaches a warning about the alarm itself: residents “should be aware of how the continuous alarm might affect their ESA if left alone in their living space during this time. In the event of a fire alarm, housing staff will not be responsible for removing the ESA from the building.” Loyola University Maryland carries only the first half of the recurring boilerplate and not the second: “Loyola personnel shall not be required to provide care for any Assistance Animal including, but not limited to, removing the Assistance Animal during emergency evacuation for events such as a fire alarm.”

Two institutions publish the blunt version of what that means during an actual evacuation. Georgia State University Housing: “If an emergency occurs and the Handler or Owner is not with their Service Animal or Assistive Animal, then the situation may necessitate leaving the Service Animal or Assistive Animal behind until the area is safe for return by proper authorities.” The University of Cincinnati publishes the same sentence with its own term for the second category: “If an emergency occurs and the Handler or Owner is not with their Service Animal or Assistance Animal, then the situation may necessitate leaving the Service Animal or Assistance Animal behind until the area is safe for return by proper authorities.”

Loyola University Maryland writes the fire-alarm version as an instruction to the student rather than as a disclaimer, and it is worth reading because it is unusually direct about the trade-off: “It is expected that a student will leash or crate their animal during a fire drill or alarm and evacuate with the animal within the same time frame as other students. Students cannot remain in the building to locate or contain the animal.”

The University of Chicago is the one document read here that says campus staff may act: “In the event of an emergency, University personnel will take appropriate action, which may include removal of the animal.” Note what that sentence is and is not. It is a statement that the institution reserves discretion. It is not a commitment to remove your animal, and the same policy still requires you to name an off-campus handler and a back-up.

Where the Animal Goes When Nobody Comes

Three of the institutions read for this page publish a destination. Knowing yours in advance is the difference between a decision and a surprise.

University of New Haven, municipal animal control. Its policy states: “A current University student or University personnel (unless the university personnel are the parents/guardians of the student) are not appropriate choices for an emergency contact and will not be permitted. ESAs must be removed within 24 hours of an emergency. After that time, the animal may be placed with West Haven Animal Control.”

University of San Diego, a named veterinary hospital, billed to the student. Its policy states: “In the event of an emergency and the Owner and caregiver/emergency contact cannot supervise the animal, the Owner agrees to all the relevant fees for boarding at the Morena Pet Hospital.” The next two sentences of the same bullet say what that covers and who is billed: “The relevant fees include all the requirements and needs expected at the time of admission by the Morena Pet Hospital. The costs will be affixed to the Owner’s Student Account.”

University of San Francisco, a shelter or boarding facility. Its policy states, in its removal section rather than its emergency section: “Failure to remove the animal within 24 hours may result in removal of the ESA to a shelter or boarding facility at the owner’s expense and referral to Student Conduct.” Read the placement of that sentence carefully, because it follows a list of grounds on which the university may require removal, so it describes the clock after a removal decision rather than the emergency-contact clock quoted earlier on the same page. Both numbers are real; they answer different questions.

If your own agreement names a municipal shelter or animal control, our page on proving a pet is yours and reclaiming it covers what an intake record is, what a facility will want from you, and how the holding clock works, which is the material you would otherwise be reading for the first time on the worst day. If your agreement names nothing, ask your housing office in writing what happens and keep the reply.

The Bind: A Named Person Is Required, and the People Nearest You Are Disqualified

This is the structural problem, and it is published in plain language at several institutions.

Boston University requires the plan quoted above, and then, under Control, states: “The owner is not permitted to leave an Emotional Support Animal unattended overnight or to assign supervision of a Emotional Support Animal to any other BU student or a staff member, including in emergency situations.” Read those two BU provisions against each other. The plan must name somebody, and the last four words of the second sentence close the door on everyone in the building.

Florida State University’s Office of Accessibility Services page states: “ESAs must be under the control of their owner at all times, cannot be left alone overnight, and cannot be cared for by another student.” Among the student responsibilities the same page lists: “Being the sole provider and caretaker for the ESA.”

The University of Georgia bars an on-campus resident as a caregiver, in the sentence quoted above. The University of New Haven bars current students and university personnel, in the sentence quoted above. Evangel University states: “The resident is solely responsible for care and supervision of the ESA and may not leave the ESA under another person’s care.” Purdue University states: “Unless expressly approved by University Residences, the assistance animal may not be left unattended overnight in the residential facilities to be cared for by another student.”

SUNY Geneseo turns the requirement into a line the student signs: “I agree to make arrangements for the evacuation of my emotional support animal when I am not present in my residence hall room, including in the case of a personal emergency, and to submit those arrangements to the Department of Residence Life.”

This site’s own observation, and none of these documents states it: the person you name in that field is not an administrative detail, it is the entire plan. Whatever else you did to get approved, the operational content of your accommodation during a closure is one name and one phone number, and several of these institutions have already ruled out everyone you see every day.

The Break and Closure Calendar

The rule that removes an animal from a residence hall over a break is published, in most of the policies read here, and it is published clearly. What is not attached to it is any resource for the student who cannot travel with the animal.

University of Chicago: “An animal cannot stay in University housing overnight without its owner. The animal must leave if the student leaves overnight, and during all University breaks during which the student leaves University housing.”

SUNY Geneseo: “Residents’ emotional support animals must be removed from the residence halls when halls close for College scheduled breaks and holidays.” The two sentences that follow it in the same policy are the ones to read twice, because they turn the break rule into a standing evacuation duty: “Arrangements must be made and on file with the Department of Residence Life in regard to the removal of the emotional support animal in the event of an emergency evacuation or evacuation drill that may occur when the owner is not present. The College is not responsible for the emergency evacuation of residents’ emotional support animals.” And, in its signed agreement: “I agree to take my emotional support animal with me when I leave my room overnight, or for any and all vacations or breaks.”

Purdue University: “The assistance animal must be taken with the owner if they leave campus overnight or for a prolonged period.”

Evangel University: “If the resident will be absent from assigned University housing overnight or for an extended period, the ESA must accompany the resident.”

University of San Diego: “When the residence halls are closed for breaks, the Owner must make proper arrangements for the removal and care of the ESA.”

And the University of New Haven publishes the part that most students assume is negotiable and finds out is not: “The Owner must make proper arrangements for the care of an ESA while the residence halls are closed for breaks. The need to care for an Approved ESA is not on its own a valid reason for permission to stay on campus over a break or any other period when university housing is closed.”

That last sentence is the honest one, and it is worth thanking New Haven for writing it down. It tells a student in advance that the animal is not a route to break housing, which is exactly the assumption a student would otherwise carry into December.

The practical move is calendar work, done now. Your housing office publishes closure dates well before the semester starts. Put every one of them into the same calendar as your travel plans and your named contact’s availability, and settle in August what happens in November.

Florida State, Three Documents That Never Meet

This section is this site’s own join of three separately published Florida State University documents. None of them makes the connection; putting them side by side is ours. All three were read on August 24, 2026 and each is quoted in its own words.

The housing contract publishes the closure rule and its teeth. The Fall 2026/Spring 2027 Housing Contract states: “FSU is subject to extreme weather events or other emergencies. FSU Housing retains the right to close Housing facilities due to causes beyond its control, including but not limited to, weather emergencies. In the event a residence hall is evacuated and closed due to extreme weather or other emergency, the student may need to shelter elsewhere on-campus or off campus and may be displaced for an extended period of time. The student will not be permitted to re-enter housing until the extreme weather or other emergency has passed and the facilities are deemed safe to open. If a student refuses to leave their room or residence hall when a residence hall is evacuated or closed, the student may be deemed liable for trespass. The re-opening of residence halls may or may not coincide with the re-opening of campus.”

The same contract’s force majeure clause names the hazard directly and settles the money question: closure for causes beyond the university’s reasonable control, “including but not limited to epidemics, pandemics, war, embargoes, fire, earthquakes, acts of God, actions or inactions of governmental or university authorities, forced closure of facilities, hurricanes, and other serious weather events, such action shall not be considered a default, delay or failure to perform by Florida State University and the student shall not be entitled to a contract cancellation, release, or any refund of any housing fees or payment or any other contract damages.”

The same contract’s animal clause says this, and only this: “Animals are prohibited in all residence hall facilities, with the exception of approved emotional support animals, service animals, and fish kept as pets in a 10–gallon or smaller aquarium.” The strings emergency contact, caregiver, caretaker and handler appear zero times in that contract.

The accessibility office’s ESA page publishes the animal rules and stops there. It carries the sole-provider and no-other-student sentences quoted above, and directs the student to complete “University Housing’s Emotional Support Animal Agreement.” The words evacuat, hurricane, storm, close and shelter appear zero times in that page’s rendered text, and in the raw page source the only occurrences of any of the five are three instances of the string close inside a JavaScript lightbox configuration rather than in the page’s own words. We looked for the referenced Emotional Support Animal Agreement itself and did not find it published at a public address on August 24, 2026, so what that document says about an emergency is not something this page can tell you; a student at Florida State can ask University Housing for their copy.

Emergency Management publishes the shelter answer, and on the date we read it that page did not mention an animal. The FSU Emergency Management Tropical Storms & Hurricanes FAQ describes when an on-campus shelter might open, and is refreshingly blunt about what it would be: “The opening of an on-campus shelter is not a guarantee and should not be your first option. Shelters are a lifeboat, not a cruise ship.” The same answer states: “Access to an on-campus shelter will be restricted to current students, faculty, staff and their immediate families.” Across that whole page the words animal, animals, pet, pets, dog, dogs, cat and cats appear zero times, confirmed by a word-boundary search of the rendered text and again of the raw page source.

Put the three together, which none of the three does for the reader, and a Florida State student with an approved ESA has: a contract that says they may be displaced for an extended period and may be liable for trespass if they stay; an accessibility policy that says they are the sole caretaker and no other student may take the animal; and an emergency management page that describes the campus shelter without ever addressing whether an animal could go there.

We are not saying Florida State permits or refuses animals at a campus shelter. We are saying its own current published pages do not answer the question, and that a student who needs the answer should get it from FSU Emergency Management and University Housing directly, in writing, before a storm is named. One circulating claim that Florida State allowed emotional support animals at a hurricane shelter traces to a single 2017 local news story about one facility opened for one storm; it is not on any Florida State page we read, and it should not be treated as a plan.

The Case These Policies Were Not Written For

Here is the finding that made this page worth writing, and it is a claim about a specific set of documents on a specific date rather than about campuses generally.

Across the fifteen campus animal policies read on August 24, 2026, the words hurricane, tornado, wildfire, flood and storm appear zero times. The only occurrence of the word weather in any of them is an unrelated campus-closing banner on Evangel University’s website. The emergency these documents describe, by name, is a fire alarm, a hospitalization or an accident.

That is not a gotcha. A fire alarm is the right thing to write a policy about, because it is the emergency that happens. But it means the fix the six named-contact policies prescribe was designed for a local, short, single-building event: a person off campus, arriving within hours, taking the animal somewhere normal.

Now apply that arrangement to a region-wide evacuation. In a hurricane, a wildfire or a large flood, the whole area is moving at once. Your named contact is not sitting at home twenty minutes away waiting for a call; they are packing their own household and sitting in the same traffic on the same closed road. The one design assumption those six policies rest on is the assumption a region-wide event removes.

That join is this site’s own reasoning and no source read for this page publishes it. What follows from it is also ours, and it is small and practical rather than dramatic: when you choose that person, the questions that matter are not just whether they like your animal.

The Handler Field: What to Settle Before You Sign

This list is this site’s own, assembled from what the six named-contact policies ask for rather than from any published checklist.

How far away do they actually live, and in which direction. A person twenty minutes inland is a different plan from a person twenty minutes further into the evacuation zone.

Do they have a vehicle, and a place the animal can go. Being willing is not the same as being able to house an animal for a week. Ask the second question out loud.

Are they disqualified by your own policy. Several institutions bar current students, on-campus residents and staff. Check before you write the name, not after.

Can you name a second person. The University of Chicago requires a back-up handler and the University of Georgia requires a minimum of two alternate caregivers. The other four of the six that require a named person ask for one. Naming a second person is available to you whether or not your school requires it.

What is your school’s published fallback. A billed veterinary hospital, a municipal animal control, a shelter, or nothing stated. If your agreement is silent, ask.

When does the contact information have to be refreshed. The University of San Diego requires reconfirmation each semester. If yours does not, put a reminder on your own calendar anyway, because the most common failure in this whole arrangement is a phone number that stopped working in sophomore year.

Does your named person know what they agreed to. Send them your agreement. Our page on being the pet sitter when the evacuation order comes is written for exactly that person, and it explains why a signed sheet is evidence of permission rather than a key that opens anything.

What Renews, and What Does Not

There is no single answer to what has to be re-submitted each year, and asserting one would be wrong for some students in either direction. Among the policies read on August 24, 2026:

Georgia State University Housing states: “Updated health and safety forms are required to be submitted each year if a Service Animal or Assistive Animal is returning to University Housing.” Its handlers must also sign a new residential contract for each academic year. The same policy separately states, about service animals: “Handler is not required to have or keep evidence that their Service Animal is or has been trained to be a service animal.”

University of Cincinnati requires handlers “to complete and sign a new Service Animal Residential Contract and Veterinarian Verification Form for each academic year they wish to continue having the Service Animal in University housing.”

Purdue University requires that owners remaining for multiple years “must submit updated ASSISTANCE ANIMAL Health Documentation prior to the start of each academic year by August 1.”

Evangel University lists among its required documents “Veterinarian Verification of Animal Good Health (to be provided annually).”

University of San Diego requires the emergency contact “confirmed and/or updated each semester.”

SUNY Geneseo runs the other way, and then carves out an exception in the next two sentences. Its policy states: “Emotional support animal accommodation approvals are valid throughout the entirety of a student’s time in on-campus housing unless explicitly stated otherwise by Accessibility Services.” The two sentences printed immediately after it in the same lettered paragraph are the ones that change the answer for some students, so read them with it: “If there is conditional approval and re-application is necessary, the student must submit an updated Emotional Support Animal Request Form completed by the student and their treatment provider. Students must also provide any necessary updated vaccination information on the animal.”

This site’s own observation across those six documents, and it is an observation about those six rather than a rule. Four of them, Georgia State, Cincinnati, Purdue and Evangel, renew the animal’s health paperwork, and two of those four, Georgia State and Cincinnati, renew a housing contract along with it. The University of San Diego renews neither of those and renews the emergency contact instead. SUNY Geneseo publishes no renewal cycle at all, and publishes one exception to that, quoted above, in which a conditional approval is re-applied for on a form completed with a treatment provider. Read together, what these six ask to be refreshed is mostly the animal and the paperwork around it rather than anything about the student, with Geneseo’s conditional-approval sentence as the published exception to that too. That is a description of six documents on one date. It is not a statement about what any institution may ask you for, and it is not a statement about your school unless your school is on that list. This page does not tell you what to ask any clinician to write; a policy’s documentation requirement is between you, your provider and your institution.

On the federal side, the 2004 HUD/DOJ Joint Statement on Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act is the surviving federal technical-assistance document on what a housing provider may ask. It is fifteen pages and nineteen questions, it was still served at HTTP 200 from hud.gov on August 24, 2026, and it is not among the nine documents listed in HUD’s September 17, 2025 withdrawal memorandum. Two things about it are worth saying in the same breath as any quotation from it. It is a 2004 technical-assistance document rather than a regulation, and it publishes no re-documentation cycle at all: the words renew, annual and each year do not appear in it in that sense, checked in two independent text extractions. Its Question 17 works an example that is one step away from the campus case. The example describes a rental applicant who uses a wheelchair and wants to keep an assistance dog in a building with a no-pets policy, and the Joint Statement then says of that applicant: “The applicant’s disability is readily apparent but the need for an assistance animal is not obvious to the provider. The housing provider may ask the applicant to provide information about the disability-related need for the dog.” That is a 2004 document describing a private rental rather than a campus, and it answers what a provider may ask rather than anything about an evacuation.

The Law, Briefly, and Where It Actually Lives

This section is deliberately short, because a live sibling on this site does the full federal analysis and one account of it is better than two.

Campus housing is reached by more than one federal regime at the same time. A university is a housing provider. If it receives federal financial assistance, it is also covered by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which is a question of fact about your institution rather than something this page can settle for you. And it is covered by the ADA, under Title II if it is a public institution and ordinarily under Title III if it is private. Any page that tells you this is one statute’s question is describing a private landlord rather than a college.

Section 504’s postsecondary rules name housing and do not name animals. 34 CFR 104.43(a) provides: “No qualified handicapped student shall, on the basis of handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any academic, research, occupational training, housing, health insurance, counseling, financial aid, physical education, athletics, recreation, transportation, other extracurricular, or other postsecondary education aid, benefits, or services to which this subpart applies.” 34 CFR 104.45(a) provides: “A recipient that provides housing to its nonhandicapped students shall provide comparable, convenient, and accessible housing to handicapped students at the same cost as to others.” The words animal, pet and dog appear zero times in either section. That is a statement about the text, not about what the text produces in any case.

The Fair Housing Act’s definition of dwelling does not name student housing. At 42 U.S.C. 3602(b), after the defined term, the definition reads: “means any building, structure, or portion thereof which is occupied as, or designed or intended for occupancy as, a residence by one or more families, and any vacant land which is offered for sale or lease for the construction or location thereon of any such building, structure, or portion thereof.” The words student, dormitory, university and college appear nowhere in that section. Whether a particular room in a particular building falls inside that definition turns on the word residence, and it is a question about facts rather than a question this page can answer for your building.

The ADA’s Title II service-animal rule exists and it is narrower than people assume it is. 28 CFR 35.136 governs service animals at a public entity, which includes a public university. Two of its paragraphs are worth reading, with their scope carried alongside them. Paragraph (e) provides: “A public entity is not responsible for the care or supervision of a service animal.” Paragraph (f) provides, in part: “A public entity shall not require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal.” Both are Title II provisions about service animals at public entities. Neither is a housing provision, neither is about an emotional support animal, and neither reaches a private college, which is ordinarily covered by Title III instead. Do not carry either sentence outside that fence.

HUD moved twice, and its own newest document says what it does not reach. HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity withdrew FHEO Notice 2013-01 and FHEO Notice 2020-01 effective September 17, 2025, and its enforcement guidance memorandum dated May 22, 2026 states: “I am permanently rescinding FHEO’s 2020 notice regarding assistance animals.” A great deal of writing about emotional support animals online still cites the 2020 notice as live guidance; it is not, and this page does not answer any question by reference to what it required. The sentence from that May 2026 memorandum that matters most on a campus is the one about its own limits: “This guidance does not address how the Department will process complaints against housing providers under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).” Read that as what it is. It is a statement about the scope of HUD’s guidance, not a grant of anything to anybody, and on a campus the two regimes it declines to speak to are regimes that also apply. Our page on post-disaster rental housing with pets sets out all of the federal material with each document’s own stated limits, and it is the page to read rather than a second, differently worded account here.

One checkable fact about a HUD page, offered as a fact rather than as an inference. On August 24, 2026, HUD’s own Assistance Animals landing page returned HTTP 200 with a title element beginning “25red-Assistance Animals”, followed by HUD’s standard site suffix, and no substantive body content at all. That is what that page served on that date. It is not evidence about what HUD’s position is, and you should check the page yourself rather than take our word for its state on a later date.

Where to take your facts. Your campus disability services or accessibility office is the office that made the determination and the office that can revisit it. Beyond that, a fair housing agency, a disability rights organization or an attorney licensed in your state can look at facts a website cannot. This page does not tell you what to file, where, or by when, and it will not predict how anything comes out.

If You Have Nobody to Name

This is the hard case, and it deserves a real answer rather than a repeat of the instruction.

The fifteen policies read for this page do not solve it. Several require an off-campus caregiver, several disqualify students and staff from being that person, and not one of them names a resource for a student who has nobody. That was checked two ways: a fixed-string search of all fifteen for phrases such as how to find, help you find, and if you do not have returned nothing, and the only occurrences of the word kennel anywhere in the fifteen were read individually and are all about crating the animal in the room. That is a statement about those fifteen documents on August 24, 2026 and not a claim about what any institution offers off the page.

What is actually available:

Ask both offices, in writing, in one message. Your disability services office and your housing office. Ask what the institution expects a student with no off-campus contact to do, and what the institution’s own fallback is. Several institutions do publish one and yours may have one that is not on a public page. Ask for the answer in writing, because a verbal answer is not something you can rely on later.

Ask someone to help you ask. A resident director, an academic advisor, a faculty member, or a case manager in a dean of students or student support office. Getting an institution to answer a written question is a skill, and it is a reasonable thing to ask for help with.

Your county or city animal services agency. This is the office that actually knows what local emergency animal sheltering exists in your area and under what conditions it opens. Call before an event.

2-1-1. Our page on using 2-1-1 to find pet help covers what that route reaches and where it stops.

Commercial boarding, arranged in advance. Our page on choosing and timing emergency boarding explains why the vaccination requirements and the intake paperwork are the part that has to be settled early, because a facility that would take your animal in August may not be able to take it on an hour’s notice in October.

What not to expect. FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program and Policy Guide, Version 1.1 Amended, FP 104-009-03, July 2025, states: “IHP assistance is not available for therapy animals or emotional support animals.” Our page on what FEMA pays for pets quotes that guide at length, including the narrower category it does reach. Do not build a plan on federal individual assistance covering this animal.

And do not leave the field blank. In several of these agreements the published fallback is simply what happens when nobody comes for the animal, and a person you never named is a person who cannot come; that fallback may be a municipal shelter or a veterinary hospital billed to your student account. A name you are unsure of, plus a written question to your housing office about what happens if that person cannot come, is a better position than silence.

What This Page Could Not Establish

Naming the gaps is part of the job.

We did not survey campus animal policies. Fifteen were read, at fourteen institutions plus Florida State University, on August 24, 2026. They were not selected to represent anything: they are institutions, public and private, large and small, in several regions, whose animal policies are published openly and were reachable that day. Fifteen is not a sample and no count of institutions is claimed. Six of the fifteen carry one recurring sentence in their emergency sections, which is evidence that the boilerplate circulates between institutions rather than evidence that it is standard.

We did not read Florida State University’s Emotional Support Animal Agreement. The FSU accessibility office’s page directs students to complete it, and we did not find it published at a public address on August 24, 2026. What that document says about a closure is unknown to this page, and a student at Florida State should ask University Housing for their own copy rather than assume either way.

We did not establish what any institution does in practice. Everything on this page is what a document says. A published clock is not a prediction about how any particular closure is handled, and a published disclaimer is not a prediction that staff will do nothing.

We did not establish whether any dormitory room is a dwelling under the Fair Housing Act. 42 U.S.C. 3602(b) is quoted above and it names no student housing. Whether a specific building qualifies is a fact question and this page does not answer it.

We deliberately did not answer the question you probably arrived with. Whether your accommodation entitles you to anything in particular during a closure is an individualized determination, and this site has no standing to make it. What we can do, and what this page does, is show you the document that already contains the operational answer and tell you which four clauses in it decide your next six hours.

Policies are keyed to academic years and will change without anybody telling you. Every quotation here carries its read date for that reason. The University of San Francisco’s page states it was revised in June 2026; the University of Cincinnati’s PDF carries a footer reading Updated January, 2020; the Florida State contract is the Fall 2026/Spring 2027 edition. Treat every one of them as a document to re-open rather than as a fact about the world.

Where to Go Next

This page is the student-housing spoke of our pet emergency playbooks hub.

The other half of the authority question. You are the pet sitter when the evacuation order comes is written for the person you named on the form, and it is the page to send them.

The federal housing picture in full. Post-disaster rental housing with pets carries the Fair Housing Act material, the ADA service-animal definition, and the 2025 and 2026 HUD changes with each document’s own limits.

What a signed document actually reaches. Pet powers of attorney, trusts and caregiver letters explains why the person reading your paperwork is usually a receptionist rather than a lawyer, and what happens when a third party declines to act on it. The neighbor pet emergency access agreement is this site’s printable version of that instrument, for the arrangements your institution’s form does not cover.

Housing after a displacement. Post-disaster rental housing with pets again for the search itself, and hosting an evacuee’s pets when your lease says no for the person offering you a couch.

Money and boarding. What FEMA pays for pets, choosing and timing emergency boarding, and using 2-1-1 to find pet help.

If you take one thing from this page, take the order of operations rather than a number. Get your own signed agreement in front of you today. Read the emergency-contact clause, the break clause, the disclaimer and the fallback. Call the person whose name is in that first clause and ask them the four questions above. Then put your school’s closure dates in your calendar. All of that is free, none of it requires anyone’s permission, and every one of those steps is easier in August than it is at nine in the evening with a closure notice in your hand.