Housing Law Commons^™

Shattering 'Blight' And The Hidden Narratives That Condemn, Patricia Hureston Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Tilting at windmills is an expression used to describe Don Quixote’s battle against perceived giants that everyone else sees merely as windmills. This expression can also describe the predicament of St. Louis Place property owners who fought against a combination of case law, statutes, governmental condemnation decisions and an unflattering narrative to save their property. In the end, St. Louis Place property owners might as well have been fighting windmills.

Since Berman v. Parker, legal scholars have challenged the definition of the term blight and the manner in which condemnation takings are used as revitalization tools in distressed communities. Attempts …

Coming Of Age On $2 A Day, Evicted: What Ced Has To Say To Today's Untethered Poverty, Susan Bennett

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Can The Government Deport Immigrants Using Information It Encouraged Them To Provide?, Amanda Frost

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Essay describes the legal and policy issues raised by any systematic effort to deport unauthorized immigrants based on information the government invited them to provide. Part I briefly surveys some of the major laws, regulations, and programs that encourage unauthorized immigrants to identify themselves. Part II analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the statutory and constitutional arguments that immigrants could raise as a defense against deportations based on self-reported data. Part III explains that even if the government’s systematic use of such data to deport unauthorized immigrants is legal, doing so would be a poor policy choice for any …

Narrowly-Tailored Privatization, Brandon Weiss

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Affordable housing projects in the United States have served as an integral part, and often the backbone, of broader community economic development (CED) initiatives for as long as community development corporations (CDCs) have existed. As the field of CED evolves, and critical thinking about the role of law and lawyers within it continues to develop, it is important that this thinking include a rigorous reevaluation of how affordable housing strategies can best support the broader aims of CED. Evidence from eighty years of significant federal policy intervention in affordable housing, fifty years of experimentation by CDCs, and thirty years of …

Reframing Homelessness In Vermont: A Systemic Approach To Homelessness Policy Advocacy In Windham County Vermont, Scott Sharland

Capstone Collection

The Changeworks Committee of the Groundworks Collaborative was created in 2014 to implement advocacy that would build public support for long-term policy changes addressing the root causes of homelessness in Windham County Vermont. This research focused on the work of this committee, and posed the question: How does reframing homelessness as a systemic issue instead of an individual issue impact the public perception of the problem in Windham County, Vermont? I argue that reframing perceptions of homelessness as the result of systemic failure and not as a problem of individual choice is key to building public support for solutions. Additionally, …

Community Development Law, Economic Justice, And The Legal Academy, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

The evolution of community economic development (CED) over the past several decades has witnessed dramatic growth in scale and complexity. New approaches to development and related lawyering, and to philosophies underlying these approaches, challenge us to reimagine the framework of CED. From the early days of community development corporations to today’s sophisticated tools of finance and organization, this evolution reflects “why law matters” in pursuit of economic justice and opportunity. Change is visible in new approaches to enterprise development and novel grassroots initiatives that comprise a virtual “sharing economy,” as well as intensified advocacy around low-wage work and efforts to …

Law School Clinic And Community Legal Services Providers Collaborate To Advance The Remedy Of Implied Warranty Of Habitability In Missouri, Karen Tokarz, Zachary Schmook

Publications

Missouri tenants have few defenses to uninhabitable housing conditions. In a statistical study conducted by the Washington University Civil Rights & Community Justice Clinic and the Metropolitan Saint Louis Equal Housing & Opportunity Council, which encompassed 6,369 landlord-tenant cases from the 2012 calendar year, only two cases (0.03%) resulted in a judgment in favor of the tenant, while 4,934 cases (77.5%) resulted in judgments in favor of the landlord, with the remaining cases being dismissed without a judgment. These findings suggest that unpresented low-income tenants seeking to raise defenses in rent and possession and eviction cases in the Missouri state …

Ancillary Agreements In Real Estate Transactions, Andrew R. Berman, Barry Hines, Everett Ward

Other Publications

This article discusses certain ancillary but important documents in the context of two common real estate transactions: mortgage loan financings and acquisitions of income-producing real estate. In particular, the article analyzes current case law and drafting considerations relating to estoppel certificates, certified rent rolls and subordination, non-disturbance agreements (SNDAs). In addition, the article examines due diligence issues for the lender and buyer. Note: This article was co-authored with Barry Hines, Partner, Frost, Brown, Todd LLC and Everett Ward, Partner, Quarrels & Brady LLP and initially presented at the Spring Meeting of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL).

Property In The City: Special Edition Introduction, Douglas C. Harris, Graham Reynolds

All Faculty Publications

Cities concern themselves with the organization of space. Their principal work involves the mapping, zoning, regulating, taxing, developing, owning, protecting, patrolling, and servicing of land. As a result, cities exert considerable control over the rights of use that property owners enjoy, but they also make many uses possible through the building of infrastructure and the provision of services. However, the effects are not unidirectional; the institution of property is not simply inert clay in the hands of a city. Cities govern the actions of owners and, by extension, shape the institution of property, but this multidimensional institution is, in turn, …

Law School Clinic And Community Legal Services Providers Collaborate To Advance The Remedy Of Implied Warranty Of Habitability In Missouri, Karen Tokarz, Zachary Schmook

Faculty Articles

Missouri tenants have few defenses to uninhabitable housing conditions. In a statistical study conducted by the Washington University Civil Rights & Community Justice Clinic and the Metropolitan Saint Louis Equal Housing & Opportunity Council, which encompassed 6,369 landlord-tenant cases from the 2012 calendar year, only two cases (0.03%) resulted in a judgment in favor of the tenant, while 4,934 cases (77.5%) resulted in judgments in favor of the landlord, with the remaining cases being dismissed without a judgment. These findings suggest that unrepresented low-income tenants seeking to raise defenses in rent and possession and eviction cases in the Missouri state …

Moore Kinship: Foreword, R.A. Lenhardt, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years ago, Mrs. Inez Moore, a widowed black mother and grandmother of little means, secured a victory that likely seemed improbable to many. Without any money, but with the assistance of a team of dedicated Legal Aid attorneys, she took her lawsuit challenging an East Cleveland, Ohio, zoning ordinance that made it a crime for her to live with her grandson all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. The ordinance permitted certain extended family configurations to reside together within the city’s limits, but it prohibited Inez’s family arrangement. Just by bringing her infant grandson John Jr., …

Racism Didn't Stop At Jim Crow, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Reviews

Nearly 50 years ago, the Kerner Commission famously declared that “[o]ur nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The picture has changed distressingly little since then. In the 1950 Census, the average African American in a metropolitan area lived in a neighborhood that was 35 percent white—the same figure as in the 2010 Census. In 2010, the average white American still lived in a neighborhood that was more than 75 percent white. America’s largest metropolitan areas—particularly, but not exclusively, in the North—continue to score high on many common measures of racial segregation. And racial segregation …

Green Home Standards: Information And Incentives, James Smith

Scholarly Works

The “green building” movement began in the United States during the 1990s. In its early stages, reformers focused on minimizing adverse environmental impacts from major public, institutional, and commercial buildings. Private-sector organizations developed voluntary standards to promote green building practices, the most prominent being LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). More recently, widespread interest in residential green building has developed. Several organizations having developed voluntary green home standards. A standard promulgated by the federal government, the Energy Star Certified Home, has achieved substantial market success during the past decade. This article describes and assesses the Energy Star Home and …

From A Muddle To A Mudslide: Murr V. Wisconsin, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

This article analyzes the U.S. Supreme Court's most-recent regulatory takings decision, Murr v. Wisconsin, concluding that the decision further muddies the takings waters and threatens to undermine the already-limited protection of private property provided by the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause.