Housing Law Commons^™

Reframing Housing: Incorporating Public Law Principles Into Private Law, Kristen Barnes

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

A new public-private law paradigm is developing with respect to the relationship of the state to private contracts. The paradigm melds private law concepts like unconscionability, good faith, and fair dealing with the public human rights principles of dignity and vulnerability. I trace this paradigm shift in the context of the housing law of Spain, where several rich cultural and legal resources have inspired a new sensibility with regard to residential mortgage loan contracts, rental agreements, and the overall duties and obligations of governments to address the citizenry's housing needs. Although this reorientation reflects decisions from the European Court of …

The Lihtc Program, Racially/Ethically Concentrated Areas Of Poverty, And High-Opportunity Neighborhoods, Brandon Weiss, Kirk Mcclure, Anne R. Willamson, Hye-Sung Han

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit ("LIHTC") program remains the nation's largest affordable housing production program. LIHTC units are under-represented in the neighborhood that both promote movement to high opportunity neighborhoods and affirmatively further fair housing. State and local officials should play an active role in guiding site selection decisions and ensuring that LIHTC developments are located in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing. Planners can use newly available data discussed herein to identify high-opportunity tracts.

Disabling Fascism: A Struggle For The Last Laugh In Trump’S America, Madeleine M. Plasencia

Articles

Six years before the start of the Second World War and seven months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the German government instituted the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.” The moral depravity that started as a sterilization program targeting “useless eaters” and lives “unworthy of life” degenerated into a “euthanasia” program that murdered at least 250,000 people with mental and physical dis/abilities as an “open secret” until 1941, when the Bishop of Munster, Clemens August Count von Galen, delivered a sermon protesting the killing of “unproductive people.”2 Although the Trump Administration has not yet driven …

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.

Disrupting The Eviction Crisis With Conflict Resolution Strategies, Deborah Thompson Eisenberg, Noam Ebner

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

“Everybody Loves The Landlord”: Evictions & The Coming Prevention Revolution, Brian G. Gilmore

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Not With Strong Hands, Nor With A Multitude Of People: The Statutory History Of The Eviction Procedure In Minnesota, Paul Birnberg, Samuel Spaid

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

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.

Mediating Disputes That Divide Communities: What Constitutes “Success”?, Joseph B. Stulberg

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Workforce Housing And Housing Preference Policies Under The Fair Housing Act, Jeffrey D. Jones

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The workforce housing movement grew out of two urgent realities. First, the lack of affordable housing near where workers are employed has a substantial impact on local economies and local business. Second, the lack of affordable housing near where workers live undermines the twin goals of inclusive com- munities and reversing historical patterns of segregation. The latter remains a primary obstacle to equality of opportunity throughout the United States. There is no one definition of “workforce housing.” The leading definition of workforce housing is provided by the influential Urban Land Institute (ULI). The ULI defines workforce housing as housing that …

How Mobile Homes Correlate With Per Capita Income, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This study looks at the nature of the relationship between the number of state-regulated mobile homes and per capita income, so as to determine whether higher-income parts of Illinois have more mobile homes than would be predicted by the conventional wisdom. It does so by identifying a simple way to determine the nature of any relationship between mobile homes and per capita income, which the conventional wisdom assumes to be negative, if only at the county level in Illinois. The study, specifically, collects and analyzes mobile home data from Illinois and per capita income data from the U.S. Census. After …

A Source Of Hope: Looking To Massachusetts’S Fair Housing Law As A Guide For Rhode Island’S Proposed Legislation To Protect Public Assistance Recipients From Housing Discrimination, Sarah Friedman

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discriminatory Dualism, Sarah L. Swan

Georgia Law Review

This Article identifies and theorizes a significant but
previously overlooked feature of structural
discrimination: it frequently develops into two seemingly
opposing, yet in fact mutually supportive practices. This
“discriminatory dualism” occurs in multiple contexts,
including policing, housing, and employment. In
policing, communities of color experience overpolicing
(i.e., the aggressive overenforcement of petty crime) at the
same time as they experience underpolicing (i.e., the
persistent failure to address violent crime). In housing,
redlining (i.e., the denial of credit to aspiring
homeowners based on race) combines with reverse
redlining (i.e., the over-offering of credit on exploitative
terms) to suppress minority homeownership. And …

Families Belong Together: The Path To Family Sanctity In Public Housing, Mckayla Stokes

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In its 2015 landmark civil rights decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court finally held that the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution guarantee same-sex couples’ marital equality. The Court’s unprecedented declaration that the right to marry is a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause strengthened married couples’ right to privacy because it subjects government actions infringing on marital unions to heightened scrutiny. The Supreme Court has the option to minimize the impact of Obergefell by interpreting the right to marriage very narrowly—as only encompassing the right to enter into a state-recognized union …

Inclusive Economics And Home Loan Policies For Informal Workers, Kim Vu-Dinh

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has been suffering from a housing crisis that existed long before the proliferation of sub-prime loans and the Great Recession of 2008-2009. For decades, millions of gainfully employed workers have been institutionally excluded from homeownership, simply because they work in the informal economy. Because of this, the economic growth of households in this demographic has been stymied by discriminatory banking policies that heavily prioritize short-term profit maximization over borrower reliability, or loan viability. Many of those affected are historically disenfranchised people, who systematically have been excluded from the American dream of “a chicken in every pot and …

Reflections On Moving Toward Integration And Modern Exclusionary-Zoning Cases Under The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article has two parts: Part I presents my views on Moving Toward Integration [Richard H. Sander et al., Moving Toward Integration: The Past and Future of Fair Housing (2018)], and Part II examines one of the book’s policy recommendations for furthering residential integration—exclusionary zoning litigation—along with some of the roadblocks to this and other pro-integration efforts erected by the Trump Administration.

The Costs And Benefits Of Affordable Housing: A Partial Solution To The Conflict Of Competing Goods, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Article, I extend a prior inquiry into the costs borne by society due to the lack of enough decent, affordable housing units. I previously outlined those costs and suggested a combination of public cost savings and public and private benefits that would accrue by providing that housing. I posited that the savings and benefits, in the aggregate, could at least substantially offset the costs and might even exceed them. If that is so, I queried, why has society not produced the needed units? In answering that question, I offered several possible responses: inadequate resources, racism, and public choice …

Is Airbnb Polluting The Big Apple? The Impact Of Regulating The Short-Term Rental Service In New York City, Kayla Laskin

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Imagine your boss calls you into his office on a Monday morning. You think you are going to chat about the weekly agenda ahead; however, you notice the sullen look on your boss’s face. You immediately become nervous and think that no good news could possibly come from this meeting. You begin to glance over his desk and notice printouts for unemployment counseling and job listings in the area. Sheer panic begins to spread throughout your body, and then your boss states, “I’m sorry, we’re going to have to let you go.” Your stomach drops to the floor. Your …

Discrimination, The Speech That Enables It, And The First Amendment, Helen Norton

Publications

Imagine that you’re interviewing for your dream job, only to be asked by the hiring committee whether you’re pregnant. Or HIV positive. Or Muslim. Does the First Amendment protect your interviewers’ inquiries from government regulation? This Article explores that question.

Antidiscrimination laws forbid employers, housing providers, insurers, lenders, and other gatekeepers from relying on certain characteristics in their decision-making. Many of these laws also regulate those actors’ speech by prohibiting them from inquiring about applicants’ protected class characteristics; these provisions seek to stop illegal discrimination before it occurs by preventing gatekeepers from eliciting information that would enable them to discriminate. …

A Home Is A Good Thing: An Argument For Changing The Eviction Process, Samuel Spaid

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

A Framework For Effective And Strategic Eviction Prevention, Maya Brennan

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

An Intentional Conversation About Adr Interventions: Eviction, Poverty And Other Collateral Consequences, Sharon Press

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

The High Cost Of Eviction: Struggling To Contain A Growing Social Problem, Judith Fox

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Critical Developments In Housing Policy - Symposium Comments, Kat Meyers, Cheryl Gonzales, Edward Josephson, Andrew Scherer

Articles & Chapters

Professor Scherer's talk starts on page 245

Zoning For Families, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Is a group of eight unrelated adults and three children living together and sharing meals, household expenses, and responsibilities—and holding themselves out to the world to have long-term commitments to each other—a family? Not according to most zoning codes—including that of Hartford, Connecticut, where the preceding scenario presented itself a few years ago. Zoning, which is the local regulation of land use, almost always defines family, limiting those who may live in a dwelling unit to those who satisfy the zoning code’s definition. Often times, this definition is drafted in a way that excludes many modern living arrangements and preferences. …

New York’S Attempts To Regulate Airbnb (And Other Home-Sharing Platforms) Have Hit A Roadblock And, In The Process, Have Inadvertently Hurt Landlords: How Alternate Dispute Resolution Can Come To The Rescue, Charlene Soleimani

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In light of the foregoing, it is easy to see that the status quo is a chaotic quagmire that offers neither a long-term nor effective solution to the challenges raised by the advent of Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms. The intent of this Note is to suggest a realistic pathway where the legitimate rights, needs, and interests of the City, Landlords, Airbnb, apartment owners, and hotels are considered and given appropriate weight when factoring in the overall solution. As described in detail in Part IV infra, it is likely, if not highly likely, that this can be accomplished by having …

Public Purpose Finance: The Government's Role As Lender, Nadav Orian Peer

Publications

This Article explores the workings of Public Purpose Finance, and its role within the U.S. political economy. “Public Purpose Finance” (PPF) refers to the broad range of institutions through which the government extends credit to private borrowers in sectors like housing, education, agriculture and small business. At a total of $10 trillion, PPF roughly equals the entire U.S. corporate bond market, and is around one half of the U.S. Gross national debt (2018 figures). The Article begins by surveying and quantifying the scope of PPF. It then demonstrates that PPF enjoys a considerable degree of insulation from the federal budgetary …

Critical Developments In Housing Policy, Kat Meyers, Cheryl Gonzales, Edward Josephson, Andrew Scherer, Michael Pollack

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The symposium discusses the New York Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, highlighting its role in enhancing tenant protections by limiting rent increases and eviction practices, thereby addressing the housing crisis in NYC.

The New "Essential": Rethinking Social Goods In The Age Of Covid-19, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The Covid-19 crisis has laid bare the fragility of social insurance systems in the United States and the lack of income security and basic benefits for many workers and residents. The United States has long had weaker protections for workers compared to other liberal democracies racial and economic disparities among those most affected by these dislocations (analyses are hampered by a paucity of demographic data). Those who were socially and economically vulnerable before the pandemic (for example due to homelessness, immigration status, or incarceration) are likely to suffer the most harm. Changes in workplace conditions as a result of the …

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 …