Law Commons^™

Resilient Cities And The Housing Trust, Marc L. Roark, Lorna Fox O'Mahony

Arkansas Law Review

In the 1970’s, cities across the United States faced new obstacles due to the deterioration of public infrastructure. Public housing projects that were built through federal housing initiatives were reaching the end of their lives after less than twenty years of being in service. Over the last forty years, cities in the United States have turned increasingly to housing trust funds to address the conjoined problems of the withdrawal of federal resources dedicated to affordable housing provision, and insufficient

Dog Owners Deserve Public Housing: Why Florida's Dog Breed Restrictions Are Discriminatory And Should Be Repealed, Melissa Betancourt

St. Thomas Law Review

This Comment analyzes why dog breed restrictions are discriminatory and ineffective, and how responsible dog owners throughout Florida lack access to inclusive public housing laws. Part II provides background on the breed-specific ordinances in Florida and Public Housing Authorities, including history and definitions. Part III discusses why breed-specific legislations are ineffective, and Florida’s recent attempts to eliminate them. Part IV considers three solutions to trump over Florida’s dog breed restrictions and aid dog owners during the current housing crisis. Lastly, Part V will summarize and conclude the analysis throughout the Comment.

Can Affordable Homes Be Healthy? Legal Strategy, Socio-Legal Studies And Activism In Indonesia, Santy Kouwagam

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

This article uses two Constitutional Court decisions in Indonesia to exemplify the importance of analysing legal strategies. These decisions declared a rule barring developers from building and selling tiny houses to be unconstitutional and invalid. The article shows that ‘justice’ in legal procedures still needs further definition, and that judges’ elaboration of decisions and their legal reasoning still needs improvement. The article will first discuss the cases, using Legal Strategy analysis. It will then highlight problems with the commoditisation of houses. Finally, it will argue that the problem of unhealthy and unaffordable housing in Indonesia can be resolved, by bringing …

Families Belong Together: The Path To Family Sanctity In Public Housing, Mckayla Stokes

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In its 2015 landmark civil rights decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court finally held that the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution guarantee same-sex couples’ marital equality. The Court’s unprecedented declaration that the right to marry is a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause strengthened married couples’ right to privacy because it subjects government actions infringing on marital unions to heightened scrutiny. The Supreme Court has the option to minimize the impact of Obergefell by interpreting the right to marriage very narrowly—as only encompassing the right to enter into a state-recognized union …

Housing, Healthism, And The Hud Smoke-Free Policy, Dave Fagundes, Jessica L. Roberts

Northwestern University Law Review

On July 30, 2018, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule prohibiting residents of public housing from smoking within twenty-five feet of any housing project took effect. These new regulations—HUD’s “smoke-free policy”—received near-universal acclaim as a means to improve public health, in particular by reducing vulnerable populations’ exposure to secondhand smoke. This Essay analyzes the smoke-free policy from the perspective of healthism—discrimination on the basis of health status. We argue that banning public housing residents from smoking is unfairly discriminatory for a variety of reasons. To start, the rule may not achieve its desired effects. Because a …

Comments: Private Investment: Trojan-Horse Or Shining Knight For America's Public Housing Stock, Andrew Balashov

University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development

The numbers are staggering. The nation's largest public housing authorities ("HA's") are in a state of crisis as a result of massive budget shortfalls. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates it would take roughly $26 billion to remedy the problem. To put this in perspective, in 2014 the New York City Public Housing Authority had a $77 million deficit and $18 billion worth of "unfunded capital improvements," - a euphemism for basic upgrades to building systems such as water, heat, air conditioning, and elevators. At present, many of these systems are woefully below acceptable livability standards. This …

Dwelling Together: Using Cooperative Housing To Abate The Affordable Housing Shortage In Canada And The United States, Jennifer Cohoon Mcscotts

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Doe V. Wilmington Housing Authority: The Common Area Caveat As A Paradigmatic Balance Between Tenant Safety And Second Amendment Rights, Iyen Acosta

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vindicating The Matriarch: A Fair Housing Act Challenge To Federal No-Fault Evictions From Public Housing, Melissa A. Cohen

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Pearlie Rucker, sixty-three years old, had been living in public housing in Oakland, California for thirteen years. Ms. Rucker lived with her mentally disabled adult daughter, Gelinda, as well as two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Ms. Rucker regularly searched Gelinda's room for signs of drugs, and had warned Gelinda that any drug activity on the premises could result in eviction. Nevertheless, Gelinda was caught with drugs three blocks from the apartment. Despite the fact that Ms. Rucker had no knowledge of Gelinda's drug activity, and in fact had been carefully monitoring what happened in her apartment, the Oakland Housing Authority …

Criminalization Of Housing: A Revolving Door That Results In Boarded Up Doors In Low-Income Neighborhoods In Baltimore, Maryland, Sarah Spangler Rhine

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Thompson V. Hud: Groundbreaking Housing Desegregation Litigation, And The Significant Task Ahead Of Achieving An Effective Desegregation Remedy Without Engendering New Social Harms, Gina Kline

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Urban Holism: The Empowerment Zone And Economic Development In Atlanta, Honorable William Campbell

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article focuses on the 1990s renaissance in Atlanta, a time where the rate of violent crime was at the lowest it had been in years and the population was growing for the first time in thirty years. It focuses on three specific explanations of the renaissance: the holistic approach to development, the Empowerment Zone, the community policing program, and the reinvention of public housing. The holistic approach involves an interplay of both the public and private sectors of the city, with no singular method used to revitalize the inner city communities. The Empowerment Zone, a plan created by President …

Fourth Amendment Accommodations: (Un)Compelling Public Needs, Balancing Acts, And The Fiction Of Consent, Guy-Uriel E. Charles

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The problems of public housing-including crime, drugs, and gun violence- have received an enormous amount of national attention. Much attention has also focused on warrantless searches and consent searches as solutions to these problems. This Note addresses the constitutionality of these proposals and asserts that if the Supreme Court's current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is taken to its logical extremes, warrantless searches in public housing can be found constitutional. The author argues, however, that such an interpretation fails to strike the proper balance between public need and privacy in the public housing context. The Note concludes by proposing alternative consent-based regimes …

Shelter The American Way: Federal Urban Housing Policy, 1900-1980, Ronald Dale Karr

New England Journal of Public Policy

American urban housing policy has featured subsidies for the suburban middle class and parsimonious spending for the urban poor. The outlines of this policy took shape during the Progressive Era: acceptance of the capitalistic market economy, support for the deserving poor needing temporary help, toleration of racial segregation, and the designation of overcrowding as the single most important urban problem. Progressive housing reformers championed stricter housing codes and model tenements, but housing conditions for the urban poor showed little improvement.

The U.S. government avoided direct involvement in housing until the early 1920s, when it promoted local zoning legislation. Under the …

Eviction Without Conviction: Publichousing Leasehold Forfeiture Under 21 U.S.C.Section 881, Gregory W. Wiercioch

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Accelerating Integration : Effective Remedies In Public Housing Discrimination Suits, Adam M. Shayne

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note examines the different remedies employed by judges to integrate public housing and recommends a standard approach for courts to employ in the future. Part I describes the status of local and federal public housing policy in the United States. Part II examines litigation aimed at achieving the integration of public housing. This Part details short-term remedies employed by judges in several cities and long-term integration efforts by the courts in two cities: Chicago, Illinois, and Yonkers, New York. The Chicago and Yonkers suits exemplify the major obstacles that plaintiffs and judges face in developing appropriate measures to integrate …

Lead-Based Paint Poisoning: Remedies For The Hud Low-Income Homeowner When Neglect Is No Longer Benign, Thomas P. Sarb

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Lead-based paint poisoning is a completely preventable disease which particularly afflicts young children living in deteriorating areas of the cities. It is caused by the ingestion of paint chips containing significant amounts of lead that have fallen or been picked off ceilings, floors, and woodwork of older houses. Repeated ingestion of such paint chips can lead to mental retardation, permanent impairment of intellectual ability, cerebral palsy, and blindness. Every year at least 400,000 children show some effect of lead poisoning; 50,000 of them need treatment; and 200 children die of the disease. The early symptoms of lead poisoning are changes …

Federal Leased Housing Assistance In Private Accommodations: Section 8, Nancy S. Cohen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The public housing program, which does not involve private developers, was also criticized as wasteful, poorly conceived, and inequitable. Further, it appeared to some that the federal government was assuming the losses caused by the accelerating decline of large cities. As a result of various investigations and HUD audits, the FHA was in a state of chaos after recurring reorganizations. The administration's suspension of housing subsidies on January 5, 1973 was an added impetus for the passage of a new act. The resulting legislation, the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974,20 is the federal government's first significant set of …

The Texas Urban Renewal Law - An Important But Primitive Tool For Community Development., Arthur Troilo

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Texas Urban Renewal Act (the Act) of 1954 has provided nearly twenty-four Texas cities access to federal assistance programs in redeveloping their blighted communities. As the federal government began withholding its financial support for urban assistance programs, many cities began reevaluating their approaches to redevelopment and the outmoded provisions of the Act. The holding in Davis v. Lubbock (1959) established the constitutional limits of the Urban Renewal Act according to the recent Texas Constitution. This study examines the shortcomings experienced as cities relied more on local funding while struggling with the inefficiencies apparent in the Act’s execution in adhering …

Administrative Law- Practice And Procedure- Tenants Of A Public Housing Project Must Be Accorded Due Process Protections Before The Promulgation Of An Across-The-Board Rent Increase

Fordham Urban Law Journal

In June 1971, the chairman of the New Rochelle Housing Authority notified all tenants of a new $2.00 per room per month service charge and tenants instituted an action under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. The tenants asked the court to declare the charge invalid and enjoin the increase unless the tenants were first accorded a hearing. The US District Court for SDNY granted tenants summary judgment holding they had a due process right to notice and a hearing. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit modified this holding they had certain due process rights, their rights …

Developments In Contemporary Landlord-Tenant Law: An Annotated Bibliography, Edward J. Ashton, David E. Brand, Richard K. Greenstein, Andrew M. Kaufman, Susan S. Lissitzn, John K. Ross, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The law changes. Sometimes the change is slow, perhaps agonizing,as in the case of labor law. Sometimes the change is swift and amicable as when a uniform code is universally accepted. But sometimes the law appears to stand still. Then, as society undergoes profound evolution,the law lurches and jerks about, trying to dispense justice with outmoded concepts in an alien context. If the legislatures fail to come to the rescue,it then devolves upon the courts to cut the traces and institute reforms. Such has been the case with the law of landlord and tenant. The massive changes that have been …

Judicial Review And Discrimination In Federally Assisted Housing: The Enforcement Of Title Vi, Barry M. Block

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Section 602 of the Act was enacted to enable federal agencies to enforce this policy, and it authorizes them to issue rules and regulations which, while consistent with the objectives of the program authorizing the assistance, effectuate the provisions of Section 601. To enforce these regulations, an agency may terminate assistance to noncomplying programs, or use any other means authorized by law.

The Proposed Housing Consolidation And Simplification Act Of 1971, William A. Newman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This note will describe the operation of selected housing programs and suggest some of the difficulties posed by the current statutory bases for these programs. It will then evaluate the effectiveness of the modifications contained in the proposed bill.

Special Project: Public Housing, Neil Cohen, John K. Johnson, Jr., Gary D. Lander, Finley L. Taylor, John G. Webb, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

Despite the general prosperity of this country, a cursory survey of any American town or city will reveal that many Americans live in housing which is "substandard." Frequently one sees unpainted houses characterized by broken windows and inadequate sanitary facilities. In urban areas, the ever present tenement is often filled with too many people and not enough toilets; stairs are dangerous and refuse lies uncollected in the halls. Rooms without windows are common, while those blessed with windows frequently receive little light--the only view is another window of another building. Disease and discomfort are everywhere.These conditions, however, are neither new …

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 …

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 …