Housing Law Commons^™

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 …

Housing For The Elderly - 202 Program, Richard M. Millman

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Evicted: The Socio-Legal Case For The Right To Housing, Lisa T. Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a triumphant work that provides the missing socio-legal data needed to prove why America should recognize housing as a human right. Desmond's masterful study of the effect of evictions on Milwaukee's urban poor in the wake of the 2008 U.S. housing crisis humanizes the evicted, and their landlords, through rich and detailed ethnographies. His intimate portrayals teach Evicted's readers about the agonizingly difficult choices that low-income, unsubsidized tenants must make in the private rental market. Evicted also reveals the contradictions between "law on the books" and "law-in-action." Its most …

Of Asthma And Ashtrays: Examining The Rights Of And Exploring Ways To Protect Maine Tenants Living In Multi-Unit Rental Housing Who Are Involuntarily Exposed To Secondhand Tobacco Smoke In Their Homes, Amy K. Olfene

Maine Law Review

Toxins found in tobacco smoke are deadly, and there is no safe level of exposure. Secondhand smoke contains over 7,000 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer in humans. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has declared secondhand tobacco smoke a Group A carcinogen, a rating “reserved for those compounds or mixtures which have been shown to cause cancer in humans, based on studies in human populations.” Exposure to tobacco smoke can cause a number of diseases and ailments in both smokers and nonsmokers; in addition, such exposure can exacerbate existing illnesses. In the United States, …

Embracing Airbnb: How Cities Can Champion Private Property Rights Without Compromising The Health And Welfare Of The Community, Emily M. Speier

Pepperdine Law Review

Peer-to-peer services offer participants considerable advantages whether they are a provider of such services or a user of them. The Airbnb phenomenon is an example of how technological advancement has transformed the rental industry and has signaled a societal acceptance of a sharing economy. However, the question now is to what extent cities should regulate this influx of short-term rentals while still preserving the property rights of homeowners. Much of the answer to this question depends on each city’s individual interpretation of specific areas of the law. Some legal issues raised by regulation and explored by this article include the …

Priority Of Condominium Associations’ Assessment Liens Vis–À–Vis Mortgages: Navigating In The Super-Priority Lien Jurisdictions, Aušra Gaigalaitė

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will discuss the issues concerning laws regulating lien priority in association foreclosure sales and argue that lenders, because they are in the best position to do so, should implement proactive strategies to protect their interests in association foreclosures. Part I provides an overview of uniform law development and a history of Washington’s governing laws with a focus on recent problems relating to association lien priority. Part II presents analysis of the important court decisions applying the lien priority statute and discussion regarding current and proposed Washington law. Finally, Part III discusses potential solutions lenders should implement to balance …

Exploiting The Poor: Housing, Markets, And Vulnerability, Ezra Rosser

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Matthew Desmond provocatively claims that landlords exploit poor tenants in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016). This essay celebrates Desmond's work and explores the exploitation claim, focusing on how landlords deliberately exploit vulnerable tenants and on forms of market-based exploitation.

An Invisible Crisis In Plain Sight: The Emergence Of The "Eviction Economy," Its Causes, And The Possibilities For Reform In Legal Regulation And Education, David A. Dana

Michigan Law Review

Review of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.

Trump's Budget Proposal Is Bad News For Housing Across The Nation, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

The White House unveiled its much anticipated budget proposal today. It shows deep cuts to important agencies, including a more than $6 billion decrease in funding to the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). More than 75 percent of the agency’s budget goes to helping families pay their rent. Thus, these cuts would have a negative impact on thousands upon thousands of poor and working class households.

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.

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 …