Housing Law Commons^™

Screened Out Of Housing: The Impact Of Misleading Tenant Screening Reports And The Potential For Criminal Expungement As A Model For Effectively Sealing Evictions, Katelyn Polk

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Having an eviction record “blacklists” tenants from finding future housing. Even renters with mere eviction filings—not eviction orders—on their records face the harsh collateral consequences of eviction. This Note argues that eviction records should be sealed at filing and only released into the public record if a landlord prevails in court. Juvenile record expungement mechanisms in Illinois serve as a model for one way to protect people with eviction records. Recent updates to the Illinois juvenile expungement process provided for the automatic expungement of certain records and strengthened the confidentiality protections of juvenile records. Illinois protects juvenile records because it …

The Loophole In The Florida Notice Requirement For Foster Caregivers, Eve Lumsden

Child and Family Law Journal

No abstract provided.

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Justice Served, Housing Preserved: The Ramsey County Housing Court Model, Colleen Ebinger, Elizabeth Clysdale

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Comments To Hud Re: Fr-6111-P-02, Hud’S Implementation Of The Fair Housing Act’S Disparate Impact Standard, Lauren E. Willis, Olatunde C.A. Johnson, Mark Niles, Rigel Christine Oliveri

Faculty Scholarship

In key places, HUD’s 2019 proposed "Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard" is at odds with express provisions of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and goes so far as to invent new defenses to liability for housing discrimination and to place the burden of pleading and proving the nonexistence of some of these defenses on plaintiffs. In addition, the proposed rule addresses itself to matters beyond the FHA; specifically, to evidentiary and procedural issues as they may arise in cases brought under the FHA in federal or state courts. HUD provides no reasoned justification for these changes …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Opportunity And The Danger Of The New Urban Migration, Richard Sander

University of Richmond Law Review

Twenty-first century America is witnessing a broad and unprecedented migration of middle- and upper-middle class families to old, dense, and often low-income urban neighborhoods. This “new urban migration” has the potential to create wholly gentrified neighborhoods that displace existing residents, or to engender racially and economically integrated neighborhoods that strengthen both neighborhoods and central cities. I argue that valuable lessons can be learned from the 1970s, when another large intraurban migration—the vast metropolitan movement of black households into white neighborhoods that followed passage of the Fair Housing Act—produced patterns of resegregation in many cities, but genuine housing integration in others. …

A New Home For Haters—Online Home Sharing Platforms: A Look At The Applicability Of The Fair Housing Act To Home Shares, Allison K. Bethel

University of Richmond Law Review

In 2018, we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Fair Housing Act which outlawed discrimination in residential transactions. When the FHA was passed, the home search process was very different. Fifty years ago, most people searched for housing by viewing listings in newspapers and other printed publications or perhaps used a realtor. Today, most people use the internet to search for housing. Home sharing, where all or part of a home is rented on a short-term basis, has become very popular since 2008 when Airbnb entered the market. It has become a multimillion-dollar business and proponents see great potential in …

Racism Knocking At The Door: The Use Of Criminal Background Checks In Rental Housing, Valerie Schneider

University of Richmond Law Review

One of the harshest collateral consequences of an arrest or conviction is the impact a criminal record can have on one’s ability to secure housing. Because racial bias permeates every aspect of the criminal justice system as well as the housing market, this collateral consequence—the inability to find a place to live after an arrest or conviction—disproportionately affects minorities.

In 2016, after decades of appearing to encourage local public housing providers to adopt harsh policies barring applicants with criminal records, the Office of General Counsel for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) issued guidance instructing public …

Coordinated Action On School And Housing Integration: The Role Of State Government, Megan Haberle, Philip Tegeler

University of Richmond Law Review

In this essay, we assess the prospects for more coordinated government efforts to address housing and school segregation at the federal, state and local level. We conclude that multiple barriers to concerted action at the federal and local level, particularly to addressing racial and economic segregation across local boundaries, suggest a more central role for state governments than has previously been the case. State-level laws and programs can succeed as drivers of integration in a way that is distinct from either federal or local interventions, because of the state’s direct control over the key policies that drive modern school and …

Fifty Years Of Fair Housing: Learning From The Past, Looking To The Future, Douglas Wilder

University of Richmond Law Review

I think sometimes you need to wonder where we were in 1968. It wasn’t just the Fair Housing Act that was passed in 1968. What happened in 1968? George Wallace was running for president. Hubert Humphrey was running for president, and Richard Nixon as well. It wasn’t just the assassination of Dr. King, we also had the assassination of Robert Kennedy. We likewise had the Vietnam War, and America was a mess. We had something else occurring in 1968. That was the Kerner Commission Report, that Dr. Crutcher mentioned had been instrumental in the fair housing bill. And they made …

Fair Housing Act At Fifty, Sara Pratt

University of Richmond Law Review

I’m going to talk a little bit about why it is that the Fair Housing Act at fifty still is relevant. I mean, after all, should it really be relevant?

How is it that a law that languished in Congress for years and then was abruptly passed when our country was in deep anger, grief, and disbelief at the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King is still relevant? There’s virtually no legislative history around the passage of the law. It was going nowhere in Congress until Dr. King was assassinated. There was no time to build up to it in …

Housing Supply And The Common Wealth, Benjamin P. Campbell

University of Richmond Law Review

It’s a powerful thing to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, something that actually happened and has actually had an effect. I grew up in segregated Virginia, so I have a pretty powerful sense of the passage of time here. It’s given us the opportunity today to review and mark human progress, to take stock of where we are and to identify the efforts and issues of our time. The victories here have changed the nation, and the task is still daunting.

Unjust Cities? Gentrification, Integration, And The Fair Housing Act, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

University of Richmond Law Review

What does gentrification mean for fair housing? This article considers the possibility that gentrification should be celebrated as a form of integration alongside a darker narrative that sees gentrification as necessarily unstable and leading to inequality or displacement of lower-income, predominantly of color, residents. Given evidence of both possibilities, this article considers how the Fair Housing Act might be deployed to minimize gentrification’s harms while harnessing some of the benefits that might attend integration and movement of higher-income residents to cities. Ultimately, the article urges building on the fair housing approach but employing a broader set of tools to advance …

Affordable Housing: Of Inefficiency, Market Distortion, And Government Failure, Michael Diamond

University of Richmond Law Review

In this essay, I examine the types of costs that are imposed on society as a whole due to the absence of a sufficient number of decent housing units that are affordable to the low-income population. These costs present themselves in relation to health care, education, employment, productivity, homelessness, and incarceration. Some of the costs are direct expenditures while others are the result of lost opportunities. My hypothesis is that these costs are significant and offer, at the very least, a substantial offset to the cost of creating and subsidizing the operation of the necessary number of affordable housing units …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

When A Tent Is Your Castle: Constitutional Protection Against Unreasonable Searches Of Makeshift Dwellings Of Unhoused Persons, Evanie Parr

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will argue that all jurisdictions should follow the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division II in validating makeshift dwellings used by people experiencing homelessness as spaces protected from unwarranted police intrusions by shifting evaluations of “reasonable expectations of privacy” to a more equitable standard that appreciates the realities of economic disparity. This approach to constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures is imperative to protect the rights of people experiencing homelessness, given that such individuals are regularly subjected to invasions of privacy and heightened exposure to the criminal justice system.

Trapped In The Shackles Of America's Criminal Justice System, Shristi Devu

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

The Missouri Student Transfer Program, Howard E. Fields Iii

Dissertations

In 1993, the state of Missouri passed the Outstanding Schools Act. This law was created as a means to ensure that “all children will have quality educational opportunities, regardless of where in Missouri they live.” Section 167.131 of this law states that an unaccredited district must pay the tuition and transportation cost for students who attend an accredited school in the same or adjoining district. This portion of the law became known as the Student Transfer Program.

The Riverview Gardens School District (RGSD) was one of three unaccredited school districts in the state of Missouri in 2013. With close to …

No Place Like Home: Tenant Harassment And The Frailty Of Housing Court, Adam M. Shrier

Capstones

Residents across New York City—particularly those living in rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartments—are subject to concerted, persistent harassment at the hands of landlords determined to replace them with higher-rent paying tenants or tenants who will remain compliant in response to the landlords’ negligence or illegal actions. Although tenant harassment is illegal in New York City, the laws and penalties of New York City Housing Court have proven to be an ineffective system for tenants and insufficient deterrent against landlords who stand to make significant financial gains from deregulating apartments and who often get slapped with little to no fines for their …

Where Techs Rush In, Courts Should Fear To Tread: How Courts Should Respond To The Changing Economics Of Today, Melanie Defiore

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Eviction Court And A Judicial Duty Of Inquiry, Harold Krent, Peter Cheung, Kayla Higgins, Matthew Mcelwee

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Justice Gap: Exploring Approaches For Improving Indigent Access To Civil Counsel, Kelsey Atkinson

Pomona Senior Theses

The United States is among one of the only democratic industrialized nations in the world that does not provide guaranteed access to civil representation in cases involving basic human need. This leaves indigent litigants who are at risk of losing their homes or their children left to seek counsel through insufficient pro-bono programs or limited scope legal self-help centers. This thesis provides a history of the struggle for the right to civil counsel, known as Civil Gideon, and explores a variety of proposed solutions to bridge the justice gap for indigent litigants. Despite considerable support for Civil Gideon among scholars …

To Kill A Mockingbird Mediator?: Assessing The Need For Third-Party Neutrals In Federal Bankruptcy Courts' Home Foreclosure Avoidance Programs, Lancelot L. Esteibar

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Note proceeds in four parts. First, Part I provides background information on the mortgage crisis, the loss mitigation processes, and current federal, state, and bankruptcy court programs aimed towards preventing foreclosure. Second, Part II describes the role of a mediator and the process of mediation. Third, Part III examines barriers to effective negotiation and why mediators can assist in overcoming those obstacles in the bankruptcy courts' loss mitigation programs. Finally, Part IV offers an alternative to the direct negotiation model prescribed by the S.D.N.Y., E.D.N.Y., and D.R.I. loss mitigation programs.

Expanding The Role Of North Carolina State Courts In Resolving Public Housing Disputes, Nooree Lee

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Partnership: Your Questions Answered - A Comprehensive Analysis Of The Civil Partnership Bill, Fergus Ryan

Reports

The Civil Partnership Bill 2009 arguably represents the most momentous change in Irish Family Law in a generation. The Bill proposes a substantial new legal status for registered same-sex partners, as well as important changes to the law as it relates to cohabitants. This report addresses the provisions of the Bill as initiated, analysing the potential impact of the Bill in clear and accessible language. The Report also highlights potential difficulties with the Bill, and suggests possible enhancements to the Bill as initiated.

Responding To Foreclosures In Cuyahoga County: A Pilot Initiative, Interim Report, Alan C. Weinstein, Kathryn W. Hexter, Molly Schnoke

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

The Center for Civic Education and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law released their report, on May 12, 2008. The report, prepared for the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners, is an assessment of the County's comprehensive approach to addressing foreclosures on two levels: 1) Making foreclosure proceedings faster and fairer and 2) Creating an early intervention program to help residents prevent foreclosure.

Is Acquisition Everything? Protecting The Rights Of Occupants Under The Fair Housing Act, Rigel C. Oliveri

Faculty Publications

This article addresses a recent trend among the federal courts to deny housing discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act in cases where the plaintiff was an occupant of the housing at the time the discrimination occurred. Put another way, the courts have begun to read the FHA as protecting only the right to obtain housing, not the right to occupy that housing free of discrimination.The trend began with a 2004 Seventh Circuit opinion authored by Judge Richard Posner in the case of Halprin v. The Prairie Single Family Homes. Halprin dismissed most of the claims of a Jewish couple …

The Giuliani Years: Corporation Counsel 1994–1997, Paul A. Crotty

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.