Law Commons^™

Do Americans Support More Housing?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

An analysis of opinion poll data on housing issues. The article finds that Americans generally believe that their community needs more housing of all types, but are more closely divided about whether such housing should be in their own neighborhoods. The article further finds that members of minority groups, lower-income Americans, and younger Americans are more pro-housing than older, affluent whites.

Learning From Land Use Reforms: Housing Outcomes And Regulatory Change, Noah Kazis

Law & Economics Working Papers

This essay serves as the introduction for an edited, interdisciplinary symposium of articles studying recent land use reforms at the state and local level. These papers provide important descriptive analyses of a range of policy interventions, using quantitative and qualitative methods to provide new empirical insights into zoning reform strategies.

After situating and summarizing the collected articles, the Introduction draws out shared themes. For example, these essays demonstrate the efficacy of recent reforms, not only at facilitating housing production but at doing so in especially difficult contexts (like when producing affordable housing and redeveloping single-family neighborhoods). They point to the …

2023 Champions For Justice 1-27-2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Scarlet Letter "E": How Tenancy Screening Policies Exacerbate Housing Inequity For Evicted Black Women, Yvette N.A. Pappoe

Journal Articles

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented health and economic crisis in the United States. In addition to more than nine hundred thousand deaths in the United States and counting, another kind of crisis emerged from the pandemic: an eviction crisis. In August 2020, an estimated thirty to forty million people in America were at risk of facing eviction by the end of the year. Black women renters faced a higher risk of losing their homes than other groups. At the onset of the pandemic, the federal government implemented eviction moratoria to prevent the evictions of tenants who were unable …

Using Youtube To Explain Housing, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

In 2021, the author ran for Borough President of Manhattan, New York. The author tried to his scholarship into his campaign by producing over twenty Youtube videos, most of which addressed land use and housing policy. The article describes the videos, and evaluates their usefulness.

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Gregory W. Bowman, Brooklyn Crockton

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Rwu Law Recognized By White House 01-28-2022, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Designing Interdisciplinary, Early Intervention Dispute Resolution Tools To Decrease Evictions And Increase Housing Stability, Christine N. Cimini

Articles

This Article provides a unique glimpse into the development of an early-intervention, pre-court, interdisciplinary dispute resolution project intended to decrease evictions and increase housing stability for recipients of subsidized housing in Seattle. With a grant from the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA), a coalition of non-profit organizations had the rare opportunity to design a dispute resolution system into existence. A dispute system design team was formed and began by examining the interconnected problems of housing instability, eviction, and houselessness. Despite thorough research on dispute system design and extensive meetings with stakeholders, the deign team encountered numerous challenges. This Article identifies the …

Equitable, Affordable And Climate-Cognizant Housing Construction, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The almost universal sentiment by a growing body of physical and social scientists is that climate change--with its floods, drought, heat, and cold-- portend losses of life, communities, property, and the rhythms of living. Some are more vulnerable to these impacts than others: individuals and the poor, who through official government policy and self-interest in the housing markets, have been relegated to live in poorly-constructed and poorly-placed structures--in the wake of ocean surges; in the path of strong winds; near hazardous and noxious facilities; stranded in urban heat islands. Failing to heed climate change omens will lead to a world …

Adaptive Rezoning For Social Equity, Affordability And Resilience, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, I will show how the legacies of the institutional barriers to housing still persist to deprive many of the predicates for economic thriving and personal flourishing and how existing zoning philosophy cannot be justified by the need to protect health and safety. Righting the inequities of the past and of the present will require dismantling some of the institutions, apparently legitimate and well-meaning, but operating devilishly to create and perpetuate hardship and exclusion. This will require laying bare the institutions to reveal their ignoble essence. We need a radical overhaul of the historic zoning regime from one …

The Case Against The Case For Zoning, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Power points used in a presentation on a work in progress, responding to Christopher Serkin's "Case For Zoning" article at 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. 749.

Not My Problem? Landlord Liability For Tenant-On-Tenant Harassment, Aric Short

Faculty Scholarship

Tenant-on-tenant harassment because of a victim’s race, gender, or other protected status, is a severe and increasingly widespread problem often targeting vulnerable tenants. The creation of a hostile housing environment violates the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), and victims may recover from their abusers, whether they are landlords or fellow tenants. But plaintiffs in two recent FHA lawsuits sought recovery from their landlords for something different: their landlords’ failure to intervene in and stop harassment committed by other tenants. These suits raise novel and important questions about the scope of the FHA, but the two courts disagreed about how the …

Fair Housing’S Third Act: American Tragedy Or Triumph?, Heather R. Abraham

Journal Articles

Fifty-two years ago, Congress enacted a one-of-a-kind civil rights directive. It requires every federal agency—and state and local grantees by extension—to take affirmative steps to undo segregation. In 2020, this overlooked Fair Housing Act provision—the “affirmatively furthering fair housing” or “AFFH” mandate—has heightened relevance. Perhaps most visible is Donald Trump’s racially charged “protect the suburbs” campaign rhetoric. In an apparent appeal to suburban constituents, his administration repealed a race-conscious fair housing rule, replacing it with a no-questions-asked regulation that elevates “local control” above civil rights.

The maneuver is especially stark as protesters fill the streets, marching in opposition to systemic …

Will Zoning Fix Itself?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Typically, zoning artificially limits housing supply, thus increasing housing costs. One possible defense of this system is that zoning can fix itself- that is, that when rents and housing costs become unusually high, politicians will deregulate and thus reduce housing costs. This article suggests that such a happy result is unlikely; instead, where housing costs spiral out of control, voters and politicians are likely to make regulation even more strict out of a fear of gentrification.

Home Equity: Rethinking Race And Federal Housing Policy, Sarah E. Waldeck, Rachel D. Godsil

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Neighborhoods shape every element of our lives. Where we live determines economic opportunities; our exposure to police and pollution; and the availability of positive amenities for a healthy life. Home inequity—both financial and racial—is not accidental. Federal government programs have armed white people with agency to construct “white” spaces while stigmatizing “Black” spaces. The urgency of addressing structural injustice in housing has been laid bare by police-involved shootings and the disparate death rates linked to COVID-19.

Using political philosopher Tommy Shelbie’s theory of corrective justice, this Article explores the historical and present-day harms that need to be rectified and then …

Home Equity: Rethinking Race And Federal Housing Policy, Rachel D. Godsil, Sarah E. Waldeck

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Neighborhoods shape every element of our lives. Where we live determines economic opportunities; our exposure to police and pollution; and the availability of positive amenities for a healthy life. Home inequity—both financial and racial—is not accidental. Federal government programs have armed white people with agency to construct “white” spaces while stigmatizing “Black” spaces. The urgency of addressing structural injustice in housing has been laid bare by police-involved shootings and the disparate death rates linked to COVID-19.

Using political philosopher Tommy Shelbie’s theory of corrective justice, this Article explores the historical and present-day harms that need to be rectified and then …

Yimby And Covid-19, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Discusses whether the COVID-19 pandemic strengthens the case for the pro-housing YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) movement.

Bringing Judaism Downtown: A Smart Growth Policy For Orthodox Jews, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Until the late 20th century, the most rigorously traditional Jews, haredi Jews (often referred to as “ultra-Orthodox”) tended to congregate in New York City. But as New York became more expensive and haredi population grew due to high birth rates, some haredi Jews (known collectively as “haredim”) moved to small towns and outer suburbs in search of cheaper land, sometimes creating towns dominated by haredim such as Kiryas Joel, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey. As haredi populations have continued to grow, their households now seek undeveloped land outside these enclaves. But as haredim move deeper into the countryside, zoning …

Downtown Condos For The Rich: Not All Bad, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Some new condominiums in urban neighborhoods are too expensive for anyone but the very wealthy. Buyers of these high-cost units include not only wealthy city residents, but also nonresidents who wish to use housing as an investment rather than a residence. Some commentators use this apparent fact as an argument against new market-rate housing generally; they claim that new housing will be purchased by out-of-town investors rather than used by local residents and that those investors will leave housing units empty, rather than renting them out. A related argument is that, even if market-rate condos are purchased by local residents, …

A Housing Crisis: The Story Of The Syringa Mobile Home Park And The Law Clinic's Quest For Water, Jessica M. Long

Articles

No abstract provided.

The High Cost Of Eviction: Struggling To Contain A Growing Social Problem, Judith Fox

Journal Articles

Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, focused public attention on the issue of eviction. As a result, scholars have begun to investigate and challenge some of the assumptions made in the book. Primarily, is eviction the cause of poverty or one of its consequences? This article explores several options in an attempt to explain the high number of evictions in America. These include, among others, the lack of affordable housing, failed governmental policies, the rise of institutional landlords and the role of courts. The article highlights some interventions that have begun to show progress in easing the burden of eviction. …

Closing The Health Justice Gap: Access To Justice In Furtherance Of Health Equity, Yael Cannon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A massive civil “justice gap” plagues the United States. Every day, low-income Americans—and disproportionately people of color—go without the legal information and representation they need to enforce their rights. This can cost them their homes, jobs, food security, or children. But unmet civil legal needs in housing, employment, and public benefits, for example, are not simply injustices—they are well-documented drivers of poor health, or social determinants of health. Those marginalized by virtue of both race and socioeconomic status are particularly harmed by inaccessibility to justice and also by chronic health conditions and lower life expectancy. When a tenant walks into …

Law School News: Mike Andrews '97 Nominated To U.S. Court Of Federal Claims 12-15-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Shelter Mobility, And The Voucher Program, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

What is to be done about the poor and about poor neighborhoods? When it comes to housing policy, the current hope is that the Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly the Section 8 Voucher Program) can provide an or ambitiously the answer to this perennial societal question. By piggybacking on the private rental market, the voucher program supposedly has numerous advantages over traditional, project-based, public housing. Not only is it less costly to house poor people in privately owned units compared to the cost of constructing and maintaining public housing, but the voucher program also offers the possibility of deconcentrating the …

Housing Stability And Diabetes Among People Living In New York City Public Housing, Sungwoo Lim, Sze Yan Liu, Melanie H. Jacobson, Eugenie Poirot, Aldo Crossa, Sean Locke, Jennifer Brite, Elizabeth Hamby, Zinzi Bailey, Stephanie Farquhar

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Public housing provides affordable housing and, potentially, housing stability for low-income families. Housing stability may be associated with lower incidence or prevalence and better management of a range of health conditions through many mechanisms. We aimed to test the hypotheses that public housing residency is associated with both housing stability and reduced risk of diabetes incidence, and the relationship between public housing and diabetes risk varies by levels of housing stability. Using 2004-16 World Trade Center Health Registry data, we compared outcomes (housing stability measured by sequence analysis of addresses, self-reported diabetes diagnoses) between 730 New York City public housing …

Health Justice Is Racial Justice: A Legal Action Agenda For Health Disparities, Sheila Foster, Yael Cannon, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Acknowledging the urgency of both health and racial justice in this moment, Sheila Foster, Yael Cannon, and M. Gregg Bloche set forth a legal agenda to fight the health effects of racism in housing, policing, the environment, and other areas.

The Pieces Of Housing Integration, Kristen Barnes

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Notwithstanding the enactment of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, accomplishing racially-integrated housing across the United States remains an unattained goal. The costs associated with this failure are innumerable. Black Americans have endured harms in many areas, including health, education, wealth, and employment. More broadly, the nation has incurred considerable socioeconomic and political costs. In the interdisciplinary book, Moving Toward Integration, authors Richard Sander, Yana Kucheva, and Jonathan Zasloff analyze why the promise of racially-integrated housing remains unfulfilled and identify noteworthy strategies for changing course. Engaging with their arguments, this article highlights several structural impediments to altering racial housing …

Micro-Housing In Seattle Update: Combating “Seattle-Ization”, Taylor Haines

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

No abstract provided.

Housing The Homeless Population During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Governments’ Ethical Responsibility, Amy Holmes

Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics

COVID-19 took the world by storm in late 2019. Governments acted to ensure that their populations were as protected as possible through stay-at-home orders and the closure of stores, restaurants, and public spaces around the world. Stay-at-home orders work well when citizens have somewhere to stay, but those experiencing homelessness face the almost insurmountable challenge of staying safe and healthy without access to a safe place to stay. COVID-19 has spread rapidly through the homeless population, and as such poses a risk to the population as a whole as the world begins to reopen. Without access to adequate sanitation supplies …

In West Philadelphia Born And Raised Or Moving To Bel-Air? Racial Steering As A Consequence Of Using Race Data On Real Estate Websites, Nadiyah J. Humber

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.