Housing Law Commons^™

Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, And Homelessness Post-Bostock, Alaina Richert

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a critical problem facing LGBTQ+ people in the United States. In addition, LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender people, disproportionately suffer from homelessness and face discrimination by homeless shelters on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This homelessness and discrimination both disproportionately affect transgender people of color. This Note makes two contributions that would enable courts to grant meaningful relief in these contexts. First, it argues that “sex” in the Fair Housing Act includes sexual orientation and gender identity after the holding in Bostock v. Clayton County. Second, …

Property Law And Inequality: Lessons From Racially Restrictive Covenants, Carol M. Rose

Northwestern University Law Review

A long-standing justification for the institution of property is that it encourages effort and planning, enabling not only individual wealth creation but, indirectly, wealth creation for an entire society. Equal opportunity is a precondition for this happy outcome, but some have argued that past inequalities of opportunity have distorted wealth distribution in contemporary America. This article explores the possible role of property law in such a distortion, using the historical example of racially restrictive covenants in the first half of the twentieth century. I will argue that the increasing professionalization and standardization of real estate practices in that era included …

The Real Estate State And Group-Differentiated Vulnerability To Premature Death: Exploring The Political-Economic Roots Of Covid-19’S Racially Disparate Deadliness In New York City In The Spring Of 2020, John Whitlow

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In May 2020, after several bleak months in which Covid-19 took the lives of thousands of New York City’s most vulnerable residents, a vigil was held in Corona Plaza, Queens, to honor the sixty-seven members of Make the Road New York whose time was cut short by the virus. At the event, State Senator Jessica Ramos spoke of the disproportionate toll Covid-19 has taken on working class, immigrant New Yorkers: “[t]hese communities are on the frontlines without adequate protections and have been left to grapple with extreme food insecurity, . . . evictions, and unemployment . . . .” …

Trading Places Or Changing Spaces? At The Crossroads Of Defining And Redressing Segregation, Melvin J. Kelley Iv

Connecticut Law Review

Segregation rates have remained stagnant in many regions of the United States since the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) in 1968 and experts expect them to increase in large metropolitan areas. Consequently, poor Blacks will be subjected to the extreme deprivation of group life chances that characterize racially and economically segregated environments. The global pandemic has only further exacerbated these dire circumstances. While severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) may not discriminate, housing, healthcare, criminal, and economic policies have, rendering impoverished communities of color particularly vulnerable to the ravages of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The …

Segregation Autopilot: How The Government Perpetuates Segregation And How To Stop It, Heather R. Abraham

Journal Articles

Housing segregation is a defining feature of the American landscape. Scholars have thoroughly documented the government’s historic collusion in segregating people by race. But far from correcting its reprehensible past, the government continues to perpetuate housing segregation today. As if on autopilot, its spending and regulatory activities routinely reinforce housing segregation. Not only is this immoral and bad policy, it is against the law. The government has a statutory duty to conduct its business in a manner that reduces housing segregation. This duty arises from a unique civil rights directive passed by Congress over fifty years ago in the Fair …

Where The Rainbow Ends: The Hidden Humanitarian Crisis For Members Of The Lgbtqia+ Community In International Business, John R. Krendel

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Before pursuing an international career, members of the LGBTQIA+ community must be aware of the hardship that may be exacerbated by living and working abroad. This study addresses the trends in laws, including employment and anti-discrimination laws, that provide and restrict certain rights of members of the LGBTQIA+ community in eight countries. These nations, both progressive and discriminatory, include the United States, England, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan, China, the Philippines and Kazakhstan. Eight LGBTQIA+ business professionals spoke on their experiences living and working in each of these countries and provided advice to members of the community wishing to pursue an international …

Champions For Justice 8th Annual, May 6, 2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Delayed Synergy: Challenging Housing Discrimination In Chicago In The Streets And In The Courts, Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Michelle Shaw

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Montgomery Improvement Association combined a boycott with a successful constitutional challenge to bus segregation laws, producing more progress to desegregate the buses than either strategy could have brought about on its own. The Montgomery Improvement Association’s approach was a paradigm of the synergy between a social movement and social change litigation.

This Article argues for opportunities for synergy between social movements and social change litigation in three ways: 1) extending the time frame; 2) joining the forces of two separate organizations to produce change, unlike the single organization in Montgomery; and 3) creating an …

Bringing History Home: Strategies For The International Repatriation Of Native American Cultural Property, Alec Johnson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The theft of Native American cultural items has been ongoing since Europeans began to colonize the Americas. As a result, millions of Native American artifacts are now located outside the borders of the United States. Native American tribes have long sought international repatriation—the return of these cultural objects to their tribal owners. Unfortunately, many countries have been unsupportive of repatriation attempts and Native Americans seeking the return of their cultural items face nearly insurmountable barriers in foreign courts. The U.S. government has a moral imperative to assist Native American tribes in these repatriation efforts. The debate over repatriation is defined …

Wisconsin's 2011 Act 108, Legislative Inaction, And Severe Racial Disparity: A Recipe For A Fair Housing Violation, Taylor N. Haefele

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

When individuals are released from prison, the biggest predictor of whether they will reoffend or successfully reenter society is whether the recently released individual has access to stable housing. Unfortunately, nearly every avenue to housing requires passing a criminal background check. Recognizing this as posing a nearly insurmountable barrier to accessing stable housing upon release from prison, Seattle, Washington; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and San Francisco, California have all enacted ordinances regulating the use of background checks to help ensure access to stable housing for formerly incarcerated individuals. Madison, Wisconsin, and other Wisconsin cities had similar ordinances that regulated the use of …

Race And The Covid-19 Eviction And Housing Crisis, Bradey Camille Baltz

Arkansas Law Notes

Historical and present discriminatory housing, land use, property, and criminal policies and laws have contributed to an inaccessibility of homeownership and wealth accumulation for people of color in the United States. “People of color rent at higher rates than white people,” and thus, face a higher risk of eviction. People of color are also overrepresented in jobs most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, like the restaurant and hotel industries. As compared to white workers, Black and Latinx Americans are less likely to have access to paid sick leave and family leave, forcing them to choose to go to work when …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Locked Up In The Eye Of The Storm: A Case For Heightened Legal Protections For Incarcerated People During Hurricanes, Maya Habash

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

No abstract provided.

The New Tipping Point: Disruptive Politics And Habituating Equality, Sarah E. Waldeck, Rachel D. Godsil

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Essay argues that the events of 2020 opened a window of political opportunity to implement policies aimed at dismantling structural injustice and systemic racism. Building on the work of philosopher Charles Mills and political scientist Clarissa Rile Hayward, we argue that the Black Lives Matter Movement constituted the “disruptive politics” necessary to shift dispositions of many in the United States toward racial equity by interrupting the white “epistemologies of ignorance.” Moreover, because policies that correct structural injustice are beneficial for people across race, even those whose hearts and minds remained closed may embrace legislative policies that function to dismantle …

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 …

The New Tipping Point: Disruptive Politics And Habituating Equality, Sarah E. Waldeck, Rachel D. Godsil

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Essay argues that the events of 2020 opened a window of political opportunity to implement policies aimed at dismantling structural injustice and systemic racism. Building on the work of philosopher Charles Mills and political scientist Clarissa Rile Hayward, we argue that the Black Lives Matter Movement constituted the “disruptive politics” necessary to shift dispositions of many in the United States toward racial equity by interrupting the white “epistemologies of ignorance.” Moreover, because policies that correct structural injustice are beneficial for people across race, even those whose hearts and minds remained closed may embrace legislative policies that function to dismantle …

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 …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

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 …

The Battle Of Brandy Creek: How One Black Community Fought Annexation, Tax Revaluation, And Displacement, Mark Dorosin

Journal Publications

The Brandy Creek community is a working class, Black neighborhood located just east of I-95, south of Weldon, North Carolina.' In 2005, this rural neighborhood and its surrounding land were legislatively annexed into the city of Roanoke Rapids as part of a planned economic development project. The decision to pursue legislative annexation allowed city officials to bypass the statutory notice and municipal service requirements of a city-initiated, involuntary annexation. Residents were never informed of Roanoke Rapids' intent to annex the community and had no opportunity to voice their opinions on the issue to town officials. In fact, the community first …

How Judicial Application Of Cda § 230 And Fha § 3604 Have Created Safe Havens For Online Housing Discrimination, Sophia A. Studer

Law Student Publications

This article analyzes how the anti-discrimination language of Fair Housing Act section 3604 is currently out of reach for people being discriminated against online through the exclusionary language of Communications Decency Act section 230(c). The exclusionary language in CDA section 230(c) prevents liability from attaching to interactive computer service providers so long as the interactive computer service provider is not a creator or developer of information. Through the decisions of Zeran, Craigslist, and Roommate, the federal appellate courts created broad shield of immunity for interactive computer service providers, leading to a safe haven for discrimination online. Together the courts and …

Mediation: Embedded Assumptions Of Whiteness?, Sharon Press, Ellen E. Deason

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Article began with the murder of George Floyd by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25, 2020, after a convenience store employee reported that Floyd used a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase cigarettes. Seventeen minutes after the police arrived, Floyd was unconscious, pinned beneath them. The events were recorded by bystanders and the public was confronted with visual evidence of what has been happening to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) especially Black men-for centuries. It was dramatic testimony that law enforcement is based on a system that is the product of systemic racism and …

Power And Possibility In The Era Of Right To Counsel, Robust Rent Laws & Covid-19, Erica Braudy, Kim Hawkins

Articles & Chapters

New York City (NYC) finds itself in an unprecedented housing crisis as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic reveals with devastating force that safe, sustainable and affordable housing is both a human right and a public health necessity. The profound humanitarian and economic devastation of COVID-19 puts millions of New Yorkers at risk of eviction especially those within Black and Latinx communities. In addition, the pandemic hit just as the legal landscape for tenants was transformed through landmark legislation ensuring the Right to Counsel in eviction proceedings and sweeping reforms of New York's rent laws. The unparalleled COVID-19 pandemic, the influx of …

Towards A Law Of Inclusive Planning: A Response To “Fair Housing For A Non-Sexist City”, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Noah Kazis’s important article, Fair Housing for a Non-sexist City, shows how law shapes the contours of neighborhoods and embeds forms of inequality, and how fair housing law can provide a remedy. Kazis surfaces two dimensions of housing that generate inequality and that are sometimes invisible. Kazis highlights the role of planning and design rules – the seemingly identity-neutral zoning, code enforcement, and land-use decisions that act as a form of law. Kazis also reveals how gendered norms underlie those rules and policies. These aspects of Kazis’s project link to commentary on the often invisible, gendered norms that shape …