Law Commons^™

Evicted: The Socio-Legal Case For The Right To Housing, Lisa T. Alexander

Lisa T. Alexander

Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a triumphant work that provides the missing socio-legal data needed to prove why America should recognize housing as a human right. Desmond's masterful study of the effect of evictions on Milwaukee's urban poor in the wake of the 2008 U.S. housing crisis humanizes the evicted, and their landlords, through rich and detailed ethnographies. His intimate portrayals teach Evicted's readers about the agonizingly difficult choices that low-income, unsubsidized tenants must make in the private rental market. Evicted also reveals the contradictions between "law on the books" and "law-in-action." Its most …

For Goodness’ Sake: A Two-Part Proposal For Remedying The U.S. Charity/Justice Imbalance, Fran Quigley

Fran Quigley

The U.S. approach to addressing economic and social needs strongly favors individual and corporate charity over the establishment and enforcement of economic and social rights. This charity/justice imbalance has a severely negative impact on the nation’s poor, who despite the overall U.S. wealth struggle with inadequate access to healthcare, housing, and nutrition. This article suggests a two-part approach for remedying the charity/justice imbalance in the U.S.: First, the U.S. should eliminate the charitable tax deduction, a policy creation that does not effectively address economic and social needs, forces an inequitable poverty relief and tax burden on the middle class, and …

Constitutional Amendment To End Homelessness, Ruben B. Botello Jd

Ruben B Botello JD

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO END HOMELESSNESS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

By Ruben Botello, JD

Founder, American Homeless Society

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." (U.S. Constitution, http://constitutionus.com/)

The above-quoted Preamble to our U.S. Constitution ordains and establishes a binding legal document of, by and for the founders of our nation and their Posterity …

Obligations Of Privilege, Ezra Rosser

Ezra Rosser

Little attention is paid to the nature of the high incomes of the rich or to the legal or norm-based obligations the rich owe society. This popular and scholarly inattention reflects the general acceptance of the idea that the rich have earned their high incomes and owe society little. By looking at income equations revealing society's role in high incomes and the obligations of the rich, the Article urges a strengthening of the obligations of the rich and rejects the argument that the legal community ought not consider the moral demands associated with high incomes.