As someone who’s fostered and trained both service dogs and ESAs, this is highly offensive. These designations are meant to help people with disabilities, not those who have financial needs. As others have already pointed out, abuse of the ESA designation has had serious negative impacts on service dog handlers. There are also many people out there with serious need for an ESA, and if others keep abusing this lax system for frivolous reasons, eventually rules are going to be in place that will inevitably hurt those with actual health needs.

If your roommate needs financial assistance feeding their dog, there are social services available to help with this. Many communities offer pet food pantries, and there are national charities available to assist with the financial strain of keeping animals in their homes. I can send a list if that’s helpful.

Most dogs I know are wonderful and brighten even strangers’ days just by being themselves. That doesn’t make it okay to abuse safety nets put in place to help disabled people in order to make their care more affordable, though.