Effects of habitability and anti-speedy eviction laws on black and aged indigent tenant groups: An economic analysis

Abstract

‘A decent home and suitable environment for every American family’ was a caU raised by Congress about 33 years ago.’ Many initiatives have been taken in the United States to make this goal a reality. They include such Federal efforts as public housing, urbah renewal, model eitics programs and housing allowance programs. In addition, state legislatures and the courts have redefined the retationship between landlords and tenants, by specifying requirements and providing remedies. Among the most potent of these are habitability. laws, often taking.the form of housing codes, and anti-speedy eviction laws. These legal requirements are of recent vintage and can be of particular importance to two major groups of indigent tenants-black tenants and aged tenants. On this subject, relatively little economic analysis has so far been undertaken. While an earlier paper examined certain welfare effects habitability laws have on indigent tenants. this paper focuses on the effects of habitability and anti-speedy eviction laws on the welfare of black and aged indigent tenants.2 Our concern with *these two kinds of laws and their effect on the welfare of black arid aged indigent tenants, should not imply that these arc the only remedial instruments made available to such tenants by legislatures and the courts. Other instruments include rent control ordinances, sometimes in association with just-cause eviction laws. anticonversion laws (which prohibit the conversion of apartments to condominiums or cooperatives), and anti-demolition ‘measures (which prohibit landlords rrom demolishing apartment buildings). However, most of these instruments are local and, therefore, empirical analyses are very difficuIt. Another class of instruments relates tothc broad subject of discrimination. Whi!c the United States Supreme Court has dcemcd the categories of race, national origin and alienage criteria by -which landlords are not pcrmittcd to discriminate, some states and local govcmmcnts also have passed age discrimination laws. An analysis of their wclfarc effects on indigent, black and aged tenants must await a separate paper.