Housing Law Commons^™

Remembering Mrs. Murphy: A Remedies Approach To The Conflict Between Gay/Lesbian Renters And Religious Landlords, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

There have been a number of legislative, caselaw and academic attempts at trying to resolve the conflict between the non-discrimination rights of gay and lesbian couples seeking housing and the free exercise rights of religious landlords who don't believe they should rent to unmarried couples. The academic writing often tries to resolve this conflict either by minimizing the harm to one of the parties (e.g., by categorizing the landlord's harm as merely commercial, or the tenant's as merely a problem of housing availability) or denying the relative importance of one of the party's rights. Others attempt a more positivist approach, …

Discriminatory Housing Statements And Section 3604(C): A New Look At The Fair Housing Act's Most Intriguing Provision, Robert G. Schwemm

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article gives a new look at section 3604(c) of the Fair Housing Act. Through section 3604(c), the FHA has outlawed biased statements with respect to an even broader range of housing sales and rentals. The three main purposes of section 3604 directly bear on the FHA's ultimate goals of eliminating housing discrimination and achieving residential integration. Under the FHA, discriminatory statements are not only probative of a defendant's illegal intent, but also, by themselves, violate the statute if made "with respect to eh sale or rental of a dwelling." Further, the lack of aggressive enforcement of section 3604(c) cannot …

Middle-Class Black Suburbs And The State Of Integration: A Post-Integrationist Vision For Metropolitan America, Sheryll Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Despite the gradual move towards integration in the United States, segregated communities, divided along socio-economic and racial lines, continue to exist, and indeed have taken on new forms. Given the choice between racial segregation and integration as minority members of a community, some middle-class African Americans have chosen to create their own communities, thus forming the modern day middle-class black suburb. Now, majority African-American suburbs rest adjacent to majority-white suburbs, but the segregated communities share little but the town line.

In this Article, Professor Cashin addresses the timely and difficult question of whether the middle-class black suburb is a new …

Protecting The Tax-Exempt Status Of Housing Developers Participating In Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Partnershps, Marni Hussong

Washington Law Review

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is an important source of federal funding for developers of affordable housing for low-income persons. Although for-profit and nonprofit developers compete for credits, the federal government reserves ten percent of the credits for nonprofit, tax-exempt developers. Exempt developers often sell the credits to for-profit investors, forming a partnership through which the exempt organization develops the housing and the investors receive tax benefits in exchange for capital contributions. The partnership formation, however, may jeopardize the tax-exempt status of the nonprofit organizations and result in the partnership losing the LIHTC. To maintain exempt status, the Internal …

Civil Rights In The New Decade: The Geography Of Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is truly an honor and a privilege to have been invited to return to my home state of Alabama to talk about the civil rights agenda in the new decade. Lest you think that I lack the appropriate credentials to speak on this issue, I will tell you that I did go to jail for the cause. At the age of four months, I was taken by my mother, Joan Carpenter Cashin, to a sit-in at a lunch counter in Huntsville, Alabama. When my mother was arrested, she insisted on taking me with her to jail. I am very …

Invading The "Homes" Of The Homeless: Is Existing Right-Of-Privacy/Publicity Legislation Adequate?, Laurel Kallen

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Patterns Of Lending To Low-Income And Minority Persons And Neighborhoods: The 1999 New York Metropolitan Area Lending Scorecard, Richard D. Marsico

Articles & Chapters

This paper analyzes home mortgage lending patterns in the New York Metropolitan Area. It examines lending to four particular underserved populations: minority persons, predominantly minority neighborhoods; low-income persons; and low-income neighborhoods. The paper compares lending to these populations to lending to control groups and over time in order to evaluate whether the needs of the underserved populations are being met. The paper also analyzes the records of individual lenders at meeting the credit needs of those four populations and ranks the lenders accordingly. The paper also analyzes trends in subprime lending to these four populations.

Affordable Housing In Suburbia: The Importance But Limited Power And Effectiveness Of The State Override Tool, Sam Stonefield

Faculty Scholarship

Through this Article the Author offers a brief comparative overview and critique of the four statutes explored at the Western New England College School of Law hosted conference, titled "Increasing Affordable Housing and Mobility in Three New England States and New Jersey: Comparative Perspectives on the Occasion of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Permit Law." The Author discusses these statutes, which address such major themes as urban decline and suburban growth, racial and economic segregation, and localism versus regionalism. The four state statutes are intertwined with these themes and with other statutes and programs that have helped to …

The Emergence Of Private Land-Use Controls In Large-Scale Subdivisions: The Companion Story To Village Of Euclid V. Ambler Realty Co., Gerald Korngold

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Rural Low-Income Housing And Massachusetts Chapter 40b: A Perspective From The Zoning Board Of Appeals, Eric J. Gouvin

Faculty Scholarship

The Massachusetts Low and Moderate Income Housing Act ("Act") was enacted in 1969 to promote the construction of lowincome housing in restrictively zoned Massachusetts communities. It seeks to achieve its goal by providing a builder's remedy which, in effect, overrides local zoning ordinances. The local Zoning Board of Appeals ("ZBA"), in deciding whether to issue a Comprehensive Permit under the Act, must evaluate the local and regional need for low-to moderate-income housing and weigh that need against local concerns over health, safety, design, and open space conservation. This Article examines the difficulty of applying the Act in rural towns. First, …

Privatized Communities And The "Secession Of The Successful": Democracy And Fairness Beyond The Gate, Sheryll Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I will reflect on how common interest developments, and their privatized spaces, are contributing to a broader phenomenon of civic secession, primarily by affluent property owners. In particular, I will analyze the way in which CIDs may affect electoral politics and the allocation of public resources by federal and state government. The chief threat of CIDs is that they exacerbate inequality in America while also exacerbating the challenges of governing. By giving the private property owner a formal context in which to feel justified in her view that she is "doing her part" simply by paying her …

Redefining The Refugee: The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights As A Basis For Refugee Protection, Michael J. Parrish

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Lead-Based Paint Real Estate Notification And Disclosure Rule, Claude E. Walker

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Changing Populations, Rules, And Roles: Conflict And Ambiguity, Mary K. Grant

New England Journal of Public Policy

Over the past ten years, public housing agencies across the country have been allowed greater discretion in the implementation of policies that affect public housing management and who will live there. Discretion in public management has the potential to be a slippery slope. While managers may have greater flexibility in responding to local need and making the best use of the limited resources available to public housing, the potential exists for risk of conflicting interpretation of policies, unclear program goals, and a conflict in roles, for example, What exactly is my job and how do I manage in this new …

The Ninth Circuit's "Hybrid Rights" Error: Three Losers Do Not Make A Winner In Thomas V. Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, Eric J. Neal

Seattle University Law Review

Because the Ninth Circuit, in reaching its Thomas decision, relied on Smith's hybrid rights language, this Note will focus on the court's analysis of that subject. By applying the hybrid rights' dicta instead of following the actual holding in Smith, the Ninth Circuit reached a conclusion that is illogical and does not comport with current Supreme Court free exercise jurisprudence. This Note will discuss the Thomas court's analysis and will propose a logical interpretation of Smith that more closely reflects the Supreme Court's actual position regarding the Free Exercise Clause.

The Wall Is Down, Now We Build More: The Exclusionary Effects Of Gated Communities Demand Stricter Burdens Under The Fha, 34 J. Marshall L. Rev. 379 (2000), Angel M. Traub

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dilemma Of Old, Urban Neighborhoods, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In his recounting of the suburban migration from America's cities, journalist and broadcaster Ray Suarez laments the loss of the "old neighborhood". He extols its virtues while explaining its decline. Suarez's nostalgic examples recall the virtues of the extended family kinship, neighborliness, and other features of the "urban village." These are often associated with those urban neighborhoods populated by recent immigratns. These urban villages were thought to have peaked in the decades between the American Civil War and the onset of the First World War, when many U.S. cities industrialized and grew very rapidly. However, a continuing movement of migrants …

Developments In Housing Law And Reasonable Accommodations For New York City Residents With Disabilities, John P. Herrion

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay examines the New York Human Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination in the sale or rental of a housing accommodation and provides persons with disabilities the right to request and receive reasonable accommodations from their housing providers. The Essay concludes that the recent interpretation of this law by New York City Commission on Human Rights Law is a move toward protecting the rights of persons with disabilities and removing unnecessary discrimination from their lives.

The Urban Housing Issues Symposium: Interdisciplinary Study In A Clinical Law & Policy, Peter W. Salsich

All Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the Urban Housing Issues Symposium, an interdisciplinary program that began in 1992 as a cooperative experiment between the Saint Louis University School of Law and the Washington School of Architecture. The program, which soon expanded to include social work and public policy students, used hypothetical problems, and later real life problems, as a way of demonstrating the importance of interdisciplinary relationships that the professions have in the context of real estate development. By giving the students the chance to interact, the students learned a greater appreciation for the variety of disciplines that are involved in the development …

Eliminating The Destitution Of America's Homeless: A Fair, Federal Approach, Alexander Tsesis

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Equity And Efficacy In Washington State's Gma Affordable Housing Goal, Henry Mcgee

Faculty Articles

This essay considers the basis for the Washington State's Growth Management Act’s (GMA) affordable housing goal, considers the relationship between its achievement and the reduction of urban sprawl. It also links the GMA's goal of an equitable distribution of housing resources to a fundamental social aspiration described by the United States Congress as a "decent home and living environment for all Americans." Indeed, it will be argued that the economic disparity and inequity directly linked to urban sprawl-both a cause as well as an effect-are locked ineluctably to a pathological social process in which they feed upon each other. Continued …

Now You See It, Now You Don't: Why Do Real Estate Agents Withhold Available Houses From Black Customers?, Jan Ondrich, John Yinger, Stephen Ross

Center for Policy Research

This paper develops a new approach to testing hypotheses about the causes of discrimination in housing sales. We follow previous research by using data from fair housing audits, a matched-pair technique for comparing the treatment of equally qualified black and white home buyers. Our contribution is to shift the focus from differences in the treatment of teammates during an audit to agent decisions concerning an individual housing unit. Our sample consists of all units seen by either a black of a white auditor in the 1989 national Housing Discrimination Study. We estimate a multinomial logit model to explain a real …

Landlord-Tenant Court In New York City At The Turn Of The Nineteenth Century, Richard H. Chused

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Grassroots Consensus Building And Collaborative Planning, Peter W. Salsich

All Faculty Scholarship

The neighborhood collaborative planning movement has an important role to play in efforts to remake American cities. This article begins by defining neighborhood collaborative planning which centers around the importance of resident participation in decisions affecting their community. The article explains how neighborhood collaborative planning is a useful way for residents to take part in governmental decision making, particularly in large cities where distance and complexity of the governmental process may make it difficult for ordinary citizens to participate. Next, it outlines the roles that lawyers and community organizer serve under the two strategies used to foster neighborhood collaborative planning, …

The Case Against Legislative Codification Of Religious Liberty, Ira C. Lupu

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Equity In Housing, Chester Hartman

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights And Mortgage Lending Discrimination: Establishing A Prima Facie Case Under The Disparate Treatment Theory, G. Carol Brani

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Perpetuation Of Segregation: Toward A New Historical And Legal Interpretation Of Redlining Under The Fair Housing Act, 32 J. Marshall L. Rev. 617 (1999), Charles L. Nier Iii

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Urban Holism: The Empowerment Zone And Economic Development In Atlanta, Honorable William Campbell

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article focuses on the 1990s renaissance in Atlanta, a time where the rate of violent crime was at the lowest it had been in years and the population was growing for the first time in thirty years. It focuses on three specific explanations of the renaissance: the holistic approach to development, the Empowerment Zone, the community policing program, and the reinvention of public housing. The holistic approach involves an interplay of both the public and private sectors of the city, with no singular method used to revitalize the inner city communities. The Empowerment Zone, a plan created by President …

An Individual Approach To Suburban Racial Discrimination, Paul Boudreaux

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The traditional model explaining racial discrimination has blamed discrimination by institutional actors in the housing industry and government. The author argues that this model ignores the individual preference factors that contribute to segregation. The replication of segregation in expanding suburban jurisdictions of metropolitan areas and the traditional legal responses are examined, as well as the implications of African American suburban migration. The author questions the adequacy of the traditional model by looking at the individual preference factors of both whites and African Americans that contribute to the replication of segregation in suburbs. The author notes that there is no method …