Housing Law Commons^™

Who Wins Residential Property Tax Appeals?, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This article explains who wins residential property tax appeals in Cook County, Illinois. It does so by collecting and combining public sector data, which has been recently released by the Cook County Assessor. The article then uses this data to compute three statistics. Lastly, it contextualizes each statistic in order to determine if some townships, or groups of townships, win more appeals than expected.

A Tale Of Two Cities: The Regulatory Battle To Incorporate Short-Term Residential Rentals Into Modern Law, Dana Palombo

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Welcome To The Village: An Analysis Of How St. Louis County Occupancy Permit Schemes Perpetuate Segregation And Violate The Constitution, Zachary Schmook, Lauren Verseman

Faculty Articles

In the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014 and the events that followed in Ferguson, national attention turned to the several ways St. Louis County’s balkanized municipal governments create policies and conditions that target poor residents and perpetuate racial segregation in the region. One such set of municipal policies involves occupancy permits: many municipalities in St. Louis County require both tenants and owners of residential properties to obtain new occupancy permits upon each change in the individuals occupying the residence. Even as the State of Missouri takes action to address some of the abuses by limiting …

Charter Eviction: Litigating Out Of House And Home, Margot Young

All Faculty Publications

The case of Tanudjaja v Attorney General (Canada) takes up the cause of housing rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a novel and complex way. The government actions and inactions cited as constitutional breaches and the broad remedial requests reflect the “pixelated” picture of housing concerns necessary to understanding Canada’s housing security crisis. In dismissing the challenge at a preliminary stage, the Ontario Superior and Appeal Courts risk rendering the Charter irrelevant to the deep social justice concerns that cross our country. More specifically, formulaic judicial invocation of concerns about positive rights and justiciability leave the …

Welcome To The Jungle, Where The Rent Is Too Damn High: Using Rent Regulation In New York City To Maintain An Affordable Housing Stock, Gabrielle Denaro

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

First, this Note describes and explains the difference between rent control and rent stabilization in New York City. Then, the history of rent control and rent stabilization laws is discussed, followed by an analysis of the arguments of those both for and against the preservation of rent regulation. Further, this Note discusses the issue of gentrification. Finally, this Note proposes an idea for an arbitration forum, and explains the logistics of how it would work and how it could benefit the system overall.

Just, Smart: Civil Rights Protections And Market-Sensitive Vacant Property Strategies, James J. Kelly Jr.

Journal Articles

This essay, prepared for and published by the Center for Community Progress, a national, non-profit intermediary dedicated to developing effective, sustainable solutions to turn vacant, abandoned and problem properties into vibrant places, examines the legal and normative implications of local governments' use of neighborhood real estate market data to strategically focus vacant property remediation tools. I and other writers, such as Frank Alexander, Alan Mallach and Joseph Schilling, have argued for the importance of understanding the economic feasibility of market-based rehabilitation of derelict, vacant houses in making decisions as to how and when to use a variety of code enforcement, …

The Price Of Equal Justice: How Establishing A Right To Counsel For People Who Face Losing Their Homes Helps Tackle Economic Inequality, Andrew Scherer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Private Regimes In The Public Sphere: Optimizing The Benefits Of Common Interest Communities, Gerald Korngold

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

A Road To Home: The Right To Housing In Canada And Around The World, Darcel Bullen

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Collects papers presented at the Right to Housing symposium, “A Road to Home: The Right to Housing in Canada and Around the World” held in Toronto, 24 October 2013. Contributors speak to the various interventions and strategies used to actualize housing as a fundamental human right in South Africa, France, the United States, Scotland, and Canada, ranging from litigation, to community awareness building, to protests, and to lobbying. Also speaks to the challenges of enforcement of the right to housing once that right is recognized at law.

Charter Eviction: Litigating Out Of House And Home, Margot Young

Journal of Law and Social Policy

The case of Tanudjaja v Attorney General (Canada) takes up the cause of housing rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a novel and complex way. The government actions and inactions cited as constitutional breaches and the broad remedial requests reflect the “pixelated” picture of housing concerns necessary to understanding Canada’s housing security crisis. In dismissing the challenge at a preliminary stage, the Ontario Superior and Appeal Courts risk rendering the Charter irrelevant to the deep social justice concerns that cross our country. More specifically, formulaic judicial invocation of concerns about positive rights and justiciability leave the …

Community Campaigns For The Right To Housing: Lessons From The R2h Coalition Of Ontario, Yutaka Dirks

Journal of Law and Social Policy

This paper describes the history of the Right to Housing (R2H) Coalition of Ontario and the role of the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO) within the Coalition. The R2H Coalition provided support to the applicants in the Right to Housing Charter Challenge. The Coalition also engaged in a variety of educational and community organizing activities in support of the right to housing and the creation of a federally funded affordable housing strategy. This paper, based on the author’s personal experiences within the R2H Coalition, examines how the adoption of community organizing principles could strengthen campaigns for systemic social change, …

Catherine Lennon's Story: Lessons From Front Line Advocacy On The Human Right To Housing, Rob Robinson

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Discusses the United States housing crisis, where four and a half million families were foreclosed on between 2008 and 2013. Families who lacked universal or adequate health insurance, found the physical pain and suffering of a loved one was soon followed by the economic pain and suffering associated with the high costs of health care. The human reality of this suffering is reflected by the story of New York state resident Catherine Lennon. Ensuring the pay out to Bank of America was the law firm of Steven J. Baum, the notorious New York based foreclosure mill, which has since been …

The Right To Housing In France: Still A Long Way To Go From Intention To Implementation, Claire Lévy-Vroelant

Journal of Law and Social Policy

The goal of this essay is to examine the implementation of housing rights in France. Legislation adopted in March 2007 opened the possibility of an enforceable right, which can be asserted before a court. However, it also created new inequalities before the law. Indeed, the conditions required to access that right exclude people who do not have permanent residence or a valid temporary resident permit. The implementation of this right is also limited due to the lack of available housing, especially at Ile-de-France, and to competition between people with priority entitlements. The horrible fire at a furnished Parisian hotel in …

Do Us Proud: Poor Women Claiming Adjudicative Space At Cesr, Emily Paradis

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Claiming Our Rights was a feminist participatory action research project based at Sistering, a Toronto drop-in for women facing homelessness. At weekly meetings over the course of eighteen months, members learned about social and economic rights, gave testimony on their lived experiences, and undertook actions to claim their rights. Among other initiatives, the group—which members named FORWARD—contributed a report on women’s homelessness to the 2006 review of Canada by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This paper draws upon observations of the group’s process and in-depth interviews with participants to assess this human rights education methodology. …

Scotland: Delivering A Right To Housing, Fiona King

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Discusses Scotland’s progressive homelessness legislation and the mechanisms through which this right to housing has been achieved. Also considers the substantial issues stemming from a lack of central government investment and the supply of social homes across Scotland to meet the legal commitment and the challenges for Scotland to continue to deliver on the right to housing.

Implementation Of Housing Rights In South Africa: Approaches And Strategies, Lilian Chenwi

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Ensuring access to adequate housing, especially for the poor and disadvantaged in society, including those faced with evictions and displacement, continues to be a global challenge. The situation remains critical in South Africa, with many poor households living in difficult conditions, facing the risk of eviction and unable to access adequate housing. This is despite the myriad of progressive housing laws, jurisprudence, policies and programs that exist in South Africa. Notwithstanding the challenges that the country faces in ensuring the effective realization of the right to adequate housing, as illustrated in this article, lessons can be learnt from its approaches …

Fighting For The Right To Housing In Canada, Tracy Heffernan, Fay Faraday, Peter Rosenthal

Journal of Law and Social Policy

This paper examines Tanudjaja v Attorney General—the “Right to Housing” case. The authors, co-counsel on the case, discuss the context of the case, the nature of the application, and the legal underpinnings of the section 7 and 15 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms claims, including positive obligations under the Charter and international law, innovative procedure taking a systemic approach to challenging oppressive legislation, and innovative supervisory orders. The authors examine the procedural and substantive implications of the provincial and federal governments’ move to strike the case, parse the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and Ontario Court of Appeal decisions …

Welcome To The Village: An Analysis Of How St. Louis County Occupancy Permit Schemes Perpetuate Segregation And Violate The Constitution, Zachary Schmook, Lauren Verseman

Publications

No abstract provided.

Poverty, Dignity, And Public Housing, Jaime Alison Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Antipoverty efforts are persistently subverted by broad societal contempt for poor people. The belief that poor people are morally and behaviorally inferior, and that their personal failings are the cause of their own poverty, is a staple of American opinion polls and political rhetoric. This presumption is so widespread that it even permeates antipoverty programs, which treat poor people with disdain even as they offer aid and assistance.

Income discrimination creates not just social stigma, but legal inequalities. The Supreme Court recognized some forty years ago that welfare law promoted wealth-based Constitutional inequalities, and responded by invoking the doctrines of …

Equity In Substantial Evidence, Or Using Article 78 Judicial Review To Achieve Justice For Public Housing Occupants, Janelle Greene

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.