Housing Law Commons^™

Foreclosure Diversion And Mediation In The States, Alan M. White

Georgia State University Law Review

The recent mortgage foreclosure crisis, whose economic effects are well known, transformed state legal structures governing the mortgage foreclosure process. What had been a relatively routine system of default judgments and auction sales has evolved into a negotiation and workout practice in which homeowners contest foreclosures, demand loan modifications and short sales, and propose other alternatives to foreclosures.

A profusion of state laws and court orders were adopted between 2008 and 2014 with the aim of promoting negotiated foreclosure alternatives. These laws have produced a variety of experiments in the “laboratories of democracy.” The defaults—whether home loans are renegotiated, defaults …

Dussault V. Rre Coach Lantern Holdings, Llc: Does The Maine Human Rights Act Recognize Disparate Impact Liability For Claims Of Housing Discrimination Brought By Section 8 Recipients Under Maine Law?, Ari B. Solotoff

Maine Law Review

In Dussault v. RRE Coach Lantern Holdings, LLC, Nicole Dussault filed a complaint with the Maine Humane Rights commission (Commission) alleging a claim of unlawful housing discrimination. Dussault asserted that when RRE Coach Lantern Holdings, LLC and Resource Real Estate Management, Inc. (collectively, Coach Lantern) refused to include a federal Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program tenancy addendum in her apartment lease, Coach Lantern discriminated against her because her status as a public assistance recipient. Following an investigation and hearing, the Commission unanimously concluded that there were reasonable grounds for a belief of unlawful housing discrimination. Dussault then brought suit …

Forgotten Youth: Homeless Lgbt Youth Of Color And The Runaway And Homeless Youth Act, Michelle Page

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Over the years, the rate of youth homelessness in America has steadily risen, prompting the creation and subsequent revision of corrective policies. One such policy is the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act of 1974. The Act is not a cure-all for homelessness but it does provide services and programs specifically designed to aid homeless youth. It has had some success, but not all homeless youth benefit from it equally.

Obviously, the youth population is not a homogenous one. Youth are of varying ages, races, genders, and sexualities. Unfortunately, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act does not specifically account for these …

The Passage Of The Fair Housing Act Of 1968: Stories To Be Told, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The enactment of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 ("FHA") is a story filled with intrigue - coercion, duplicity, and back-room deals. In The Secret History of the Fair Housing Act, Professor Jonathan Zasloff provides a riveting account of the maneuvers by the various protagonists in that story. Review of Jonathan Zasloff’s The Secret History of the Fair Housing Act, 53 Hary. J. on Legis. 247 (2016), http://property.jotwell.com/the-passage-of-the-fair-housing-act-of-1968-stories-to-be-told/.

Airbnb And The Battle Between Internet Exceptionalism And Local Control Of Land Use, Jamila Jefferson-Jones, Stephen R. Miller

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Federal Housing Administration And African-American Homeownership, David Reiss

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Healthy Zoning, Matthew J. Parlow

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Segregation, Violence, And Restorative Justice: Restoring Our Communities, 50 J. Marshall L. Rev. 487 (2017), Michael Seng

UIC Law Review

This article will explain why restorative justice is an effective remedy in resolving the social and economic problems that plague our communities. A narrow approach will not succeed. Restorative justice solutions require participation by the entire community; nothing less will work.

Does The Threat Of Gentrification Justify Restrictive Zoning?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Historically, progressives have opposed restrictive zoning, arguing that by restricting the housing supply to high-end housing, zoning reduces the supply of housing available to lower-income Americans. But recently, some progressives have suggested that new market-rate housing facilitates gentrification and displacement of lower-income renters. This article critically examines that theory.

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, …

In Search Of Smarter Homeowner Subsidies, Matthew Rossman

Faculty Publications

Critics have long assailed the federal tax code’s principal homeowner subsidies as lucrative tax breaks for upper income households that are essentially worthless to those financially constrained from purchasing a home. This article examines the subsidies through a different lens and reveals another serious flaw. It demonstrates how the homeowner subsidies, which represent a massive federal investment in homeownership, do very little to contain and instead probably increase costs on others that result from certain types of housing choices and that other federal policies seek to remedy. These negative housing externalities include: (i) blight, deterioration, and public health risks in …

Bringing Home The Right To Housing To Advance Urban Sustainability, Lisa Alexander

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The title of my talk today is Bringing Home the Right to Housing to Advance Urban Sustainability. You may ask what is the right to housing? Why do we need to bring it home? And what does it have to do with the broader topic of today’s symposium, urban sustainability?

The human right to housing, although not a formal American federal or constitutional right, provides an important legal and normative framework that can help American cities and states better balance the needs of owners and non-owners in local housing and development struggles. If American cities and states want to create …

The Multifaceted Manifestations Of The Poor Door: Examining Forms Of Separation In Inclusionary Housing, Conor Arpey

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equitably Housing (Almost) Half A Nation Of Renters, Andrea Boyack

Faculty Publications

America’s population of renters is growing faster than the supply of available rental units. Rental vacancies are reaching new lows, and rental rates are reaching new highs. Millions of former homeowners have lost their homes in foreclosure and, due to today’s much tighter mortgage underwriting realities, will not realistically re-enter the ranks of owner-occupants. For a number of reasons – variety of incomes, different stages in life, and a range of personal preferences and lifestyles – homeownership is not for everyone. And yet federal government housing policy has consistently prioritized homeownership over renter-specific issues, such as affordability and rental supply …

Carson’S Call Of Duty, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Dr. Ben Carson, the nominee for Housing and Urban Development Secretary, has made almost no public pronouncements about housing policy. The one exception is a 2015 Washington Times opinion piece in which he addresses the Obama Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. While Dr. Carson appears to agree with the Obama Administration’s diagnosis of the problem of segregation, he attacks its solution. If he refuses to vigorously enforce the rule at HUD, it is still incumbent on him to address the underlying problem it was meant to address.

Segregative-Effect Claims Under The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Two types of discriminatory-effect claims have been recognized under the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA): (1) disparate impact; and (2) segregative effect. Neither requires a showing of illegal intent, and both, according to a 2013 regulation promulgated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), are subject to the same three-step burden-shifting proof scheme, which assigns the plaintiff the initial burden of proving that the defendant’s challenged practice causes a discriminatory effect. Both the disparate-impact and segregative-effect theories date back to appellate decisions from the 1970s, although the Supreme Court’s endorsement of the former in 2015 in Texas …

Side By Side: Revitalizing Urban Cores And Ensuring Residential Diversity, Andrea Boyack

Faculty Publications

Fifty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed a hope that someday people of all races would “live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing.” Residential patterns in America today, however, remain highly segregated by race and income. The Fair Housing Act outlawed overt housing discrimination and unjustified discriminatory impacts, but zoning laws and housing finance structures have continued to impede housing integration, leaving communities nearly as racially homogenous as they were in the mid 20th century. These separate neighborhoods are far from equal. The majority of people who reside in financially distressed city-center neighborhoods are …

Reflections On The Persistence Of Racial Segregation In Housing, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article is Weinstein's reflection on the Annual Sullivan Lecture entitled Crossing Two Color Lines: Interracial Marriage and Residential Segregation in Chicago by Dorothy E. Roberts (2016).

INTRODUCTION My reflection on Professor Roberts' Sullivan Lecture poses two questions. First, how far have we come as a nation from the hypersegregated housing patterns of the 1930s through 1960s that Professor Roberts described in her lecture? Regrettably, the answer appears to be not far at all. Further, we are today faced with a second form of hypersegregation, one based on income rather than race. Second, why have we made so little progress …

Cities, Inclusion And Exactions, Audrey G. Mcfarlane, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

Cities across the country are adapting mandatory inclusionary zoning. Yet, consensus about the appropriate constitutional standard to measure the propriety of mandatory inclusionary zoning has not been fully reached. Under one doctrinal lens, inclusionary zoning is a valid land use regulation adopted to ensure a proper balance of housing within the jurisdiction. Under another doctrinal lens, challengers seek to characterize inclusionary zoning as an exaction, a discretionary condition subject to a heightened standard of review addressing the specific negative impact caused by an individual project on the supply of affordable housing in a jurisdiction. Drawing from the experience of Baltimore, …

Introduction, Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, Karen Marie Johnston

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Ending Disparities And Achieving Justice For Individuals With Mental Disabilities, Robert K. Goldman, Sheila Shea

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Blowing Past Minnesota Nice: New Opportunities Arise To Utilize Disparate-Impact Theory And Practice In Twin Cities Low-Income Housing Discrimination Litigation, Anne M. Robertson

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Inclusion Imagined: Fair Housing As Metropolitan Equity, David D. Troutt

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fair Housing: Introduction, Buffalo Law Review

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Push Green Development Zone: Building Housing Equity From The Ground Up, Sam Magavern, Aaron Bartley

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equitably Housing (Almost) Half A Nation Of Renters, Andrea J. Boyack

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Affirmatively Furthering Equal Protection: Constitutional Meaning In The Administration Of Fair Housing, Blake Emerson

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.