Law Commons^™

The Failed Federalism Of Affordable Housing: Why States Don't Use Housing Vouchers, Noah M. Kazis

Michigan Law Review

This Article uncovers a critical disjuncture in our system of providing affordable rental housing. At the federal level, the oldest, fiercest debate in low-income housing policy is between project-based and tenant-based subsidies: should the government help build new affordable housing projects or help renters afford homes on the private market? But at the state and local levels, it is as if this debate never took place.

The federal government (following most experts) employs both strategies, embracing tenant-based assistance as more cost-effective and offering tenants greater choice and mobility. But this Article shows that state and local housing voucher programs are …

Rent Strikes And Tenant Power: Supporting Rent Strikes In Residential Landlord-Tenant Law, Samantha Gowing

Michigan Law Review

For more than a century, low-income tenants across cities in the United States have protested and organized together against unjust housing conditions. Yet landlords continue to evade accountability, leaving mold, pests, lead paint, unclean water, and innumerable other issues unaddressed. On top of habitability concerns, the past several decades of gentrification have displaced hundreds of thousands of Black and brown residents from their communities. To address these issues, legal reforms have focused on either housing-market regulation or individual rights devoid of effective enforcement mechanisms. These reforms fall short. Tenant power, not just tenant-focused housing reform, should be a concern of …

Remediating Racism For Rent: A Landlord’S Obligation Under The Fha, Mollie Krent

Michigan Law Review

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) is an expansive and powerful piece of legislation that furthers equal housing in the United States by ferreting out discrimination in the housing market. While the power of the Act is well recognized by courts, the full contours of the FHA are still to be refined. In particular, it remains unsettled whether and when a landlord can be liable for tenant-on-tenant harassment. This Note argues, first, that the FHA does recognize liability in such a circumstance and, second, that a landlord should be subject to liability for her negligence in such a circumstance. Part I …

The New Housing Segregation: The Jim Crow Effects Of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances, Deborah N. Archer

Michigan Law Review

America is profoundly segregated along racial lines. We attend separate schools, live in separate neighborhoods, attend different churches, and shop at different stores. This rigid racial segregation results in social, economic, and resource inequality, with White communities of opportunity on the one hand and many communities of color without access to quality schools, jobs, transportation, or health care on the other. Many people view this as an unfortunate fact of life, or as a relic of legal systems long since overturned and beyond the reach of current legal process. But this is not true. On the contrary, the law continues …

An Invisible Crisis In Plain Sight: The Emergence Of The "Eviction Economy," Its Causes, And The Possibilities For Reform In Legal Regulation And Education, David A. Dana

Michigan Law Review

Review of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.

The "No Property" Problem: Understanding Poverty By Understanding Wealth, Jane B. Baron

Michigan Law Review

Could it be that understanding homelessness and poverty is less a function of understanding the homeless and the poor than of understanding how the wealthy come to ignore and tolerate them? This is one of the more intriguing suggestions of anthropologist Kim Hopper's Reckoning with Homelessness, and it echoes claims made by lawyers who, like Hopper, have spent much of their careers advocating on behalf of the homeless. While Hopper's new book is first and foremost a work of anthropology, its structure strongly parallels recent work by legal scholars who have sought to assess the effects of litigation and lobbying …

Consuming Government, Richard Schragger

Michigan Law Review

In his ambitious new book, William Fischel, a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, gives us a new political animal: "The Homevoter." The homevoter is simply a homeowner who votes (p. ix). According to Fischel, she is the key to understanding the political economy of American local government. By implication, she is the key to understanding state and national government as well. Homeowners warrant special attention because "residents who own their own homes have a stake in the outcome of local politics that make them especially attentive to the public policies of local government" (p. ix). That is because local …

The Taming Of A Duty--The Tort Liability Of Landlords, Olin L. Browder

Michigan Law Review

For one inclined to reform the first-year curriculum in law schools the most simple and comprehensive solution is to expand the treatment of the law on landlord and tenant, and only then break up into the traditional basic subjects to deal with matters not previously covered. Thereby one could embrace all the traditional first-year subjects except Criminal Law, and a good deal more as well.

The other side of this conceit is that one who approaches the modem law of landlord and tenant from traditional property perspectives encounters particular problems that arise from the margins, or along the frontal thrust, …

Toward A New Theory Of Roman Law, David F. Pugsley

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome by Bruce W. Frier

Apartheid In America: A Historical And Legal Analysis Of Contemporary Racial Segregation In The United States, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Apartheid in America: A Historical and Legal Analysis of Contemporary Racial Segregation in the United States by James A. Kushner

The Validity Of Ordinances Limiting Condominium Conversion, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In 1974, the New York Times ran a front-page story about the dilemma of an elderly woman who lived in a Washington, D.C., apartment building that was being converted into a condominium. On a limited budget, she faced the choice of either finding a new place to live in the tight Washington housing market or paying $2000 down and $422.50 in monthly installments for the same one-bedroom apartment she had been renting for $ 155.00 per month. The woman's situation is not unusual: a federal study estimates that owners have recently converted 60,000 rental apartment units to condominiums, and real …

Search And The Single Dormitory Room, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note suggests that dormitory privacy should not be illusory. It argues that when a college breaches the standards of the fourth amendment in searching a student's room, the exclusionary rule should proscribe reliance on the fruits of that search to punish the student.

The argument progresses in two steps. Section I observes that the guarantees of the fourth amendment apply to searches of college students' rooms by college officials just as they apply to searches of any private dwelling by government officials. It traces the happy demise of Moore v. Student Affairs Committee, which allowed students only limited …

Retirement Communities: The Nature And Enforceability Of Residential Segregation By Age, Mary Doyle

Michigan Law Review

Although age segregation in retirement communities can be established in a variety of ways, the Article focuses primarily on age-restrictive zoning ordinances, the method most directly involving governmental action. The Article first considers those persons adversely affected by age-restrictive retirement communities and suggests that potential plaintiffs may be divided into three classes-neighboring property owners whose land values are affected by the establishment of a retirement community, those excluded from such a community solely by virtue of ·their age, and those excluded or potentially excluded because of the age of persons with whom they choose to live. Next, the constitutional arguments …

Housing Codes, Building Demolition, And Just Compensation: A Rationale For The Exercise Of Public Powers Over Slum Housing, Daniel R. Mandelker

Michigan Law Review

In programs of housing improvement and slum clearance, public agencies must often make difficult choices between the exercise of public powers of land acquisition, which require the payment of compensation, and public powers of noncompensatory regulation, which require no payment of compensation. This Article focuses on three of these programs-building demolition, urban renewal, and housing code enforcement. Public agencies may demolish slum dwellings, one at a time, without compensation. Title to the cleared site is not affected and remains in the owner after the building has been demolished. Under statutory powers of urban renewal, local public agencies may designate entire …

Landlord And Tenant--Leases--Lease Executed In Violation Of District Of Columbia Housing Regulations Is An Illegal Contract--Brown V. Southall Realty Co., Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff-landlord brought an action for possession based on nonpayment of rent in the Landlord-Tenant Branch of the District of Columbia Court of General Sessions. Although the parties stipulated at trial that the rent was 230 dollars in arrears, defendant-tenant contended that the plaintiff was not entitled to possession because the lease was an illegal contract under the District of Columbia Housing Regulations. The trial court rejected this contention and gave judgment for plaintiff. By the time her appeal to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals was heard, the tenant had vacated the premises and no longer desired to contest …

Slumlordism As A Tort--A Brief Response, Joseph L. Sax

Michigan Law Review

Professors Blum and Dunham begin their comment by accusing us of having a new idea. We plead guilty. Our purpose was to demonstrate that accepted principles in analogous areas of law would support a slumlordism action, not to argue that tort law as presently applied would do so. Indeed, our basic intent was to underscore the myopia of existing tort law perspectives.

Slumlordism As A Tort--A Dissenting View, Walter J. Blum, Allison Dunham

Michigan Law Review

The persistence of substandard housing in urban centers stands as a challenge to law. There is a pressing need to re-examine whether prevailing legal doctrines are adequate for dealing with the problem and to suggest new doctrines where the old are found wanting. To their great credit, Joseph L. Sax and Fred J. Hiestand in their article "Slumlordism as a Tort" face up to these tasks boldly and vigorously. They conclude that, under existing conditions, it is imprudent to rely on public authorities to enforce housing codes and it is unlikely that legislatures will place sufficient enforcement powers in private …

Slumlordism As A Tort, Joseph L. Sax, Fred J. Hiestand

Michigan Law Review

The war against poverty has been fought with rather more vigor than its initiators contemplated. Thus far, however, the major engagements have taken place in the streets of Watts and Chicago, which is not quite what they had in mind. Some, who think it odd that as we pass more laws we get more lawlessness, will perhaps content themselves by observing that the feeding hand is always bitten. Those less easily satisfied have begun to see the need for adopting some legal solutions as far reaching as the problems they are designed to abate; the following article is addressed to …

Constitutional Law-State Action: Significant Involvement In Ostensibly Private Discriminations-Mulkey V. Reitman, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

From 1959 through 1963, the California legislature enacted a series of statutes which prohibited racial discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. Most important among these were the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which proscribed racial discrimination by "business establishments of every kind,'' and the Rumford Fair Housing Act, which prohibited such conduct by anyone in the sale or rental of residential housing containing more than four units. Adverse public reaction to these statutes resulted in an amendment to the California constitution15 by means of an initiative measure in the general election of 1964. This amendment, popularly known as Proposition …

The Public Housing Administration And Discrimination In Federally Assisted Low-Rent Housing, Jordan D. Luttrell

Michigan Law Review

The Public Housing Administration is the federal agency primarily responsible for the administration of the federally assisted low-rent housing program. Since the expense of constructing low-rent housing unassisted by federal funds is prohibitive for state or local governments, this program accounts for practically all low-rent housing in the United States. Consequently, PHA has exercised, and continues to exercise, substantial influence on the development of the nation's low-rent housing.

Fair Housing Laws And Brokers' Defamation Suits: The New York Experience, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The New York Law Against Discrimination, originally enacted in 1945 to eliminate discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin, has been steadily broadened to encompass discrimination in such areas as public accommodations and private housing. The law was amended in 1961 and 1963 to enable the State Commission for Human Rights to prevent. discrimination by either the owner or the real estate broker in the selling, renting, or leasing of any housing accommodation or commercial space. Despite the apparently broad protection established by the sweeping language of the statute, real estate brokers have discovered a novel …

Enforcement Procedure Of Oberlin, Ohio, Fair Housing Ordinance Held Unconstitutional--Porter V. City Of Oberlin, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a citizen of Oberlin, Ohio, brought an action for declaratory and injunctive relief to review the constitutionality of the city's fair housing ordinance, which makes it a misdemeanor to discriminate because of race, creed, or color in the sale or rental of housing. Under the procedure established by the ordinance, the Housing Renewal Commission is directed to make investigations of complaints filed with it. If violations are discovered, the commission must attempt to eliminate the discriminatory practices by conciliation and persuasion. If these efforts fail, the entire record of the matter must be forwarded to the city council, accompanied …

Prior Lien On Rents And Profits Upheld As A Method Of Financing Repairs- In Re Dep't Of Bldgs., Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Official findings of the New York Legislature in 1962 revealed the existence in certain cities of housing conditions which, unless immediately corrected, might cause irreparable damage to buildings or endanger the life, health and safety of their occupants or the general public. To facilitate the correction of these conditions and to increase the supply of adequate, safe dwelling units, the legislature enacted the 1962 Receivership Law, which creates a procedure enabling a city to enforce its housing codes by compelling needed repairs and improvements.

Conservation And Rehabilitation Of Housing: An Idea Approaches Adolescence, J. Michael Warren

Michigan Law Review

From the time of construction, buildings are subject to the physical elements, the wear and tear of time, and the constant march of progress which transforms yesterday's luxuries into today's necessities. Left unchecked, these forces tend to produce the slums and blight that traditionally have been the curse of urban areas. Private, charitable, and civic organizations were the first to deal with the problem of improving conditions in slum areas. Later, state and local governments joined the effort, and although they were somewhat more successful than the pioneers in the field, without federal assistance the task proved to be beyond …

Condominium--Home Ownership For Megaopolis?, John E. Cribbet

Michigan Law Review

The past year, 1962, witnessed no let up in the cold war between East and West. In the race for the conquest of space, in the battle of national rates of economic growth, in the propaganda struggle to fix the responsibility for nuclear testing, in the trial of strength over Cuba, and in countless other areas, each bloc leader continued to measure achievement against the rival's successes or defeats. The cold war is a deadly business and produces little to warm the cockles of a man's heart, but, if only the threat of nuclear destruction could be averted, there is …

Constitutional Law - Equal Protection - Racial Discrimination And The Role Of The State, William C. Griffith S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Constitutional history from the 1857 Dred Scott decision to the 1954 Brown decision records "a movement from status to contract" for the American Negro. Although uncertainty clouds the definition of "state action," the civil rights of the Negro under the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment have been clearly established. The Negro citizen has arrived; the Negro minority group remains one of the gravest social problems of twentieth century America. De facto school segregation, limited economic opportunity, and inadequate housing are problems not solved by invocation of the fourteenth amendment or incantation of the Declaration of Independence. Solution, …

Greenberg: Race Relations And American Law, Spencer L. Kimball

Michigan Law Review

A Review of RACE RELATIONS AND AMERICAN LAW. By Jack Greenberg.

Banks And Banking- Housing And Home Finance - Scope Of Insurance Coverage Of Banks Under National Housing Act, Robert L. Mclaughlin

Michigan Law Review

Borrower executed a promissory note to dealer payee, who assigned it to defendant bank. After default by borrower, plaintiff United States paid to defendant the unpaid balance in accordance with the terms of their insurance contract under Title I of the National Housing Act. The note was then transferred to plaintiff for collection. In an action by the United States against the borrower for the amount due, it was held that the note could not be enforced because of fraudulent misrepresentation by the dealer in acquiring the note, of which the insured bank and transferee government had constructive knowledge. Plaintiff …

Real Property - Mortgages - Liability Of Mortgagee Of Lessee's Term For Rent, Michael B. Lewiston S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Respondent leased a building to South Texas Kitchens, Inc., for a term of five years. The lessee became indebted to petitioner and, being unable to meet this obligation, transferred its business assets and lease to petitioner as security. Petitioner was authorized to manage the business and to apply all proceeds to discharge the indebtedness, the transfer to terminate when the debt was fully paid. Petitioner went into possession of the premises and operated the business for about six months, paying the rent during that period. It then vacated the property and ceased making rental payments. Respondent sued petitioner and the …

Constitutional Law - Civil Rights - Recent New York City Ordinance Bans Discrimination In Certain Private Housing Facilities, W. Stanley Walch

Michigan Law Review

A recent New York City ordinance is the first anti-discrimination legislation affecting the sale and rental of privately-owned housing to minority groups. The ordinance contains three principal provisions: It (1) forbids racial or religious discrimination by private owners in the selection of tenants or buyers for any "housing accommodation which is located in a multiple dwelling," (2) bans discrimination in the selection of purchasers by a seller of ten or more contiguous housing units, and (3) prohibits the owner or lessor of housing accommodations covered by the ordinance from discriminating because of race or religion in setting the terms of …