Housing Law Commons^™

The Euclid Proviso, Ezra Rosser

Washington Law Review

This Article argues that the Euclid Proviso, which allows regional concerns to trump local zoning when required by the general welfare, should play a larger role in zoning’s second century. Traditional zoning operates to severely limit the construction of additional housing. This locks in the advantages of homeowners but at tremendous cost, primarily in the form of unaffordable housing, to those who would like to join the community. State preemption of local zoning defies traditional categorization; it is at once both radically destabilizing and market responsive. But, given the ways in which zoning is a foundational part of the racial …

Praxis And Paradox: Inside The Black Box, Lauren Sudeall, Daniel Pasciuti

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In the American legal system, we typically conceive of legal disputes as governed by specific rules and procedures, resolved in a formalized court setting, with lawyers shepherding both parties through an adversarial process involving the introduction of evidence and burdens of proof. The often-highlighted exception to this understanding is the mass, assembly-line processing of cases, whether civil or criminal, in large, urban, lower-level courts. The gap left unfilled by either of these two narratives is how "court" functions for the average unrepresented litigant in smaller and nonurban jurisdictions across the United States.

For many tenants facing eviction, elements of the …

Incentivizing Fair Housing, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

Restrictive land use regulation has thwarted the upward mobility of many Americans, particularly Americans of color. Local restrictions imposed by affluent municipalities have limited access to safe neighborhoods, better housing, and good schools. Racism and economic self-interest have both played a role in exclusionary practices which have contributed to high housing costs that place a strain on the entire economy.

Fair Housing Act litigation has been one weapon in the fight against these practices. Despite the Supreme Court's decision in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. , disparate impact litigation faces significant obstacles that …

Exacting Inclusion: Property Theory, The Character Of Government Action, And Implicit Takings, Donald J. Smythe

Faculty Scholarship

Recent takings cases challenging inclusionary housing ordinances tap into an ongoing controversy about whether government interventions in the housing market do more harm than good; but they also raise much more general questions about takings law. This Article uses the controversy raised by recent housing cases to probe the relationship between the Supreme Court’s regulatory takings jurisprudence and its exaction takings jurisprudence and to suggest a more coherent approach to implicit takings. The Court’s exaction takings jurisprudence is well-designed if it is applied appropriately. As a general matter, it encourages the mitigation of socially harmful nuisances, incentivizes developers to make …

The Rising Of Systemic Racism And Redlining In The United States Of America, Edward Brian Flournoy

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

Systemic racism and redlining are synonymous with one another. This essay reviews the history of scholarly research and discussion regarding affordable housing and its impact on ethnic groups in the United States, especially Black African Americans. Affordable housing celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2017, yet much still needs to be done. Moreover, the U.S. Shipping Act of 1917 and Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Intervention Demonstration Program (1994–2009) are congruent to this essay.

Carrots Or Sticks?: Anti-Gentrification Mechanisms In Atlanta, Georgia And Berlin, Germany, Bailey Meyne

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Reallocating Redevelopment Risk, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

Scores of cities across the country face devastating financial crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought even more to the brink. But economically distressed municipalities have few places to turn for help. Saddled by rising unemployment, weak tax bases, and state law limitations on deficit spending and debt assumption, they generally cannot spend their way out. And as conditions deteriorate, mobile capital and labor move to greener pastures, further hollowing out the cities they leave behind. With state and federal lifelines tenuous at best, offers by large developers to redevelop an area of the city can thus appear to be …

Challenges And Opportunities For Hotel-To-Housing Conversions In Nyc, Noah Kazis, Elisabeth Appel, Matt Murphy

Other Publications

As the country continues to grapple with the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath, policymakers in New York City and Albany have debated how to support the conversion of hotels into housing—and especially affordable housing—as part of a solution to the city’s ongoing housing crisis. The basic intuition is compelling. COVID has forced the shuttering of many commercial establishments, especially in hard-hit New York City. In certain sectors, the effect has been particularly large: these include hotels devastated by shutdowns in tourism, international travel, and business travel. At the same time as these spaces are sitting empty, though, Americans have faced …

Olmstead As A Tool For Decarceration, Sarah Kahn

UC Irvine Law Review

Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring established that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990’s integrated-care mandate requires the government to make reasonable accommodations to protect the right of people with disabilities to live in the most integrated setting possible. In response, counties began releasing people from restrictive mental-health institutions but did not provide the necessary resources, such as supportive housing and outpatient care, to allow people to live successfully in their communities. As many people contending with disabilities were left homeless and the United States increased its reliance on incarceration, shuttered mental-health institutions gave way to jails and prisons. …

Collecting Medical Debt Through South Carolina's Setoff Debt Collection Program: How It Works And Why It Doesn't, Dixie N. Mccollum

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Q&A: Bi-Coastal Blues, Lucas Ferrara

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Session 3: Access To Financial Services - The Promise (And Challenges) Of Fintech, Joseph M. Vincent, Chris Adams, Lucinda Fazio, Roberta Hollinshead, Sumit Mallick, Sands Mckinley, Jonice Gray Tucker, Tonita Webb

SITIE Symposiums

For many Americans, the American Dream is a dream deferred. Recently, there has been an explosion in demand for diversity, equity, and inclusion in financial services. This has coincided with an explosion of a different kind related to delivering financial services through innovations in technology, otherwise known as FinTech. We have seen a plethora of FinTech applications on our smartphones, ranging from online lending to remote deposit making. While these applications provide potential opportunities to level the playing field for those whose dream has been deferred, there remain challenges.

Session 1: Access To Legal Services - The Role Of Innovation And Technology, Steven Bender, Stacy Butler, Anna Carpenter, Michael Cherry, Sands Mckinley, Kimball Dean Parker, Miguel Willis

SITIE Symposiums

This expert panel is addressing access to justice problems. People without access to lawyers and legal services suffer in many ways not limited to divorce, domestic violence, and educational roadblocks. This panel will ask what lawyers can do to help, in what ways can technology help or replace lawyers in the delivery of legal and non-legal services. It will also explore different legal services being offered by individuals who do not have a JD, online firms, and developing technology in a law firm owed subsidiary. There are six panelists who are broken into two categories: (1) the innovation and delivery …

Opening Session, Annette Clark, Steven Bender

SITIE Symposiums

This year's conference focuses on the social good, highlighting three access barriers fundamental in law and society - access to legal services (and more generally, justice), access to health and health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, and access to financial services for the unbanked or underbanked.

Landlord Bounty Hunters: Qui Tam As An Effective Tool For Housing Code Enforcement, Alex Ellefson

Journal of Law and Policy

Millions of American renters live in substandard housing. Conditions in these homes not only affect individual renters’ quality of life, but in the aggregate create enormous burdens on public resources in the form of higher healthcare costs, demand for public benefits, and lower economic productivity. Furthermore, the legacy of racist housing policies in the United States has concentrated poor housing conditions in low-income communities of color. This Note argues that existing methods of housing code enforcement are inadequate. Instead, housing advocates should turn to an ancient remedy that has been used to prosecute fraud, labor violations, and even pirates: qui …

A-Void-Able Consequences: Void Sales & Subsequent Purchasers Under Arkansas’S Statutory Foreclosure Act, Hannah Hungate

Arkansas Law Notes

This Comment explores Arkansas’s Statutory Foreclosure Act and addresses the question of whether there can be a “subsequent purchaser for value” when a foreclosure sale is void from the outset. After a review of the Act itself, distinction between void and voidable foreclosures of property, findings of other state courts, and proper application of the Act, the author urges the Arkansas Supreme Court to make a formal declaration finding that purchasers of property foreclosed upon in a void sale are not “subsequent purchasers for value” under the meaning of the statute.

Tempering Glass Armor: A Demand For Improved Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws To Protect Homeless Transgender People, Jack Beasley

Student Scholarship

Homelessness is a nationwide problem that affects hundreds of thousands of people a year. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals face unique, additional issues in their day-to-day lives that heterosexual and cisgender individuals do not. Homeless shelters across the country are full of transgender youth and adults who are subject to more sexual violence, criminal acts, and discrimination than other homeless individuals in the same shelters. The Obama administration’s rule protecting homeless transgender people in shelters is in danger. In essence, Housing Secretary Ben Carson’s proposed rule would put homeless transgender people at a higher risk of discrimination. Agency …

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 …

Challenging Domestic Injustice Through International Human Rights Advocacy: Addressing Homelessness In The United States, Eric Tarst, Tamar Ezer, Melanie Ng, David Stuzin, Conor Arevalo

Articles

This Article explores how international human rights norms and procedures can serve as a powerful tool in addressing injustice in the United States context, using work addressing the criminalization of homelessness as a case study. Moreover, it explores how civil and political rights and negative obligations by the government can serve as an entry point for asserting a more robust understanding of rights that includes social and economic rights and affirmative obligations by government. The Article documents and analyzes original work led by the National Homelessness Law Center and other pioneering advocates, reflecting on lessons learned and next steps to …

Redliking: When Redlining Goes Online, Allyson E. Gold

William & Mary Law Review

Airbnb’s structure, design, and algorithm create a website architecture that allows user discrimination to prevent minority hosts from realizing the same economic benefits from short-term rental platforms as White hosts, a phenomenon this Article refers to as “redliking.” For hosts with an unused home, a spare room, or an extra couch, Airbnb provides an opportunity to create new income streams and increase wealth. Airbnb encourages prospective guests to view host photographs, names, and personal information when considering potential accommodations, thereby inviting bias, both implicit and overt, to permeate transactions. This bias has financial consequences. Empirical research on host earning rates …