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Full-Text Articles in Social Welfare Law
The Rental Crisis Will Not Be Televised: The Case For Protecting Tenants Under Consumer Protection Regimes, Eric Sirota
The Rental Crisis Will Not Be Televised: The Case For Protecting Tenants Under Consumer Protection Regimes, Eric Sirota
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Foreclosure Crisis of the 2000s has likely hurt renters more than homeowners. Incongruously, however, consumer enforcement agencies have been far more zealous in protecting mortgagors than tenants. This Article explores the under-protection of tenants as a class of consumers, particularly in a “commoditized” rental market, and examines how consumer enforcement agencies can more zealously incorporate tenant-protection into their mandates.
Much of the prior literature on the legal protections afforded tenants was published in the wake of the consumer rights revolution of the 1970s. This Article is the first to carefully reexamine, in the context of the modern rental market, …
Conflict Preemption: A Remedy For The Disparate Impact Of Crime-Free Nuisance Ordinances, Meredith Joseph
Conflict Preemption: A Remedy For The Disparate Impact Of Crime-Free Nuisance Ordinances, Meredith Joseph
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Thousands of municipalities across the country have adopted crime-free nuisance ordinances—laws that sanction landlords for their tenants’ behaviors, coercing them to evict tenants for actions as innocuous as calling 9-1-1 in an emergency. These facially neutral ordinances give wide discretion to municipal officials, leading to discriminatory enforcement of evictions. As a result, these ordinances have a devastating impact on victims of domestic violence and are used as a tool to inhibit integration in majority-white municipalities. Many plaintiffs have brought lawsuits alleging violations of the U.S. Constitution and the Fair Housing Act. However, bringing lawsuits under various anti-discrimination protections presents many …
Safe At Home: Protecting Female Tenants From Violence, Lori A. Pope
Safe At Home: Protecting Female Tenants From Violence, Lori A. Pope
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article deals with the tension for legal aid clinics between a policy of not representing landlords and a policy of acting for abused women rather than their alleged abusers. Many women face violence where they live, which can jeopardize their tenancies. To combat the resulting legal problems effectively, clinics may need to work indirectly or even directly for landlords. Clinics ought also to consider lobbying for changes to legislation to allow tenants to take action directly against other tenants who threaten their safety. Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS), which led the way for other clinics in their adoption of …