Housing Law Research Articles

From Tenure to Rights: Conceptualizing the Changing Focus of Housing Law in England

This paper suggests a new way of conceptualizing tenure as a series of discourses that comprise respectively: (a) property law; (b) housing policy; and (c) housing status. Housing research has generally focused on housing policy discourse in a way that obscures legal relationships. In contrast, a focus on property and housing status has greater potential to make explicit the rights and obligations that arise in different situations. The ?bundle of rights? view provides the most acceptable statement of tenure relations in housing. It is the only view that covers both property and housing status and that can also make sense of tendencies towards juridification. The implication for research is to focus on the exact terms of rights, their changing distribution between different parties and their scope for enforcement. If research extends to a review of the origins and continuing rationale of rights, some form of narrative analysis is usually necessary.

Social Policy Digest NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN November 1998 to January 1999

Contents1 Social security and income maintenance2 Health (formerly Health care)3 Education4 Housing and environment5 Personal social services6 Law and the treatment of the offender7 Unemployment and the labour market8 Race relations9 The voluntary sector10 Government (formerly Local government)11 Gender12 Demography

Qualifying a Quantifying Analysis on Racial Equality

I examine two survey questions about support for government involvement in two important areas of race: housing and employment. The questions have appeared in major longitudinal surveys in the United States since the 1960s and 1970s, and have undergone considerable quantitative analysis. In a qualitative analysis of the meaning of these survey questions for respondents in a purposive sample (n = 14) of individuals who initially participated in a probability sample mail survey of Detroit-area whites, two key findings emerge. First, it appears that a question on open housing laws may best be interpreted as tapping a stronger commitment to the principle than to the implementation of equal treatment. Second, respondents are confused about the meaning of fair treatment in jobs. Although each survey question reputedly taps support for the implementation of equal treatment, they show quite different results over time, as well as with other basic correlates. This analysis sheds light on these puzzling quantitative findings and illustrates how qualitative techniques can aid in understanding the meaning of the survey questions used to tap social attitudes.

Social Policy Digest NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND TEN August to October 1998

Contents1 Social security and income maintenance2 Health care3 Education4 Housing and environment5 Personal social services6 Law and the treatment of the offender7 Unemployment and the labour market8 Race relations9 The voluntary sector10 Local government11 Gender12 Demography

Issues in British politics

Introduction State and Market Economic Policy Industry and Work Social Welfare Education, Health and Housing Law and Order Foreign Relations and Defence Britain and Europe Constitutional Reform Accountability and Sleaze Nationalism and Devolution Gender, Ethnicity and Discrimination The Environment BSE and the Politics of Events Conclusion: Issues and the Political Process

Social Policy Digest NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND NINE May to July 1998

Contents1 Social security and income maintenance2 Health care3 Education4 Housing and environment5 Personal social services6 Law and the treatment of the offender7 Unemployment and the labour market8 Race relations9 The voluntary sector10 Local government11 Gender12 Demography

AMERICA'S URBAN PROBLEM/AMERICA'S RACE PROBLEM

Two factors - sprawl and race - are shaping urban America. Through annexation or city-county consolidation, “elastic cities” capture new suburban development. Elastic cities have growing populations, stronger tax bases, and better fiscal health than growth-constrained “inelastic cities.” However, the concentration of low-income minorities, which is greatest in inelastic cities, is the basis for major disparities between cities and many surrounding suburbs. Even highly inelastic cities in “White America” maintain virtual economic parity with their suburbs. For many central cities, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, annexation and city-consolidation are no longer legally or politically feasible. Allied with older, declining suburbs, cities must form new political alliances to get the federal government and, in particular, state governments to change the “rules of the game” regarding regional development. Key policy reforms are regional land use planning and growth management laws, regional tax base or revenue sharing, and regional “fair share” affordable housing laws.

NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT February to April 1998

Contents1 Social security and income maintenance2 Health care3 Education4 Housing and environment5 Personal social services6 Law and the treatment of the offender7 Unemployment and the labour market8 Race relations9 The voluntary sector10 Local government11 Gender12 Demography

New directions in housing law?

New directions in housing law?

NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN November 1997 to January 1998

Contents1 Social security and income maintenance2 Health care3 Education4 Housing and environment5 Personal social services6 Law and the treatment of the offender7 Unemployment and the labour market8 Race relations9 The voluntary sector10 Local government11 Gender12 Demography

Social Policy Digest NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND SIX August to October 1997

Contents1 Social security and income maintenance2 Health care3 Education4 Housing and environment5 Personal social services6 Law and the treatment of the offender7 Unemployment and the labour market8 Race relations9 The voluntary sector10 Local government11 Gender12 Demography

Social Policy Digest NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE May to July 1997

Contents1 Social security and income maintenance2 Health care3 Education4 Housing and environment5 Personal social services6 Law and the treatment of the offender7 Unemployment and the labour market8 Race relations9 The voluntary sector10 Local government11 Gender12 Demography

Affirmative Action and the Politics of Realignment

Over the past thirty years, the Democratic party has carried the mantle of racial liberalism. The party's endorsements of equal rights, fair housing laws and school busing have cost it the support of some whites, but these losses have been concentrated at the periphery of the party, among those least committed to its guiding principles or most unsympathetic to its efforts on behalf of racial equality. We argue that with the rise of affirmative action as the primary vehicle to advance racial equality, racial politics have become divisive in a new way, and that opposition to affirmative action now encompasses whites within the liberal core of the Democratic party.Contrasting traditional survey measures of affirmative action attitudes with an experimentally-based, unobtrusive measure of opposition to affirmative action, we show that racially liberal whites are reluctant to admit their anger over racial preferences when confronted with traditional survey questions in a telephone interview. When measured with an unobtrusive instrument, however, white opposition to affirmative action is found to be just as strong among liberals as conservatives, among Democrats as Republicans, and among those most committed to racial harmony and equality as among those least committed to such values. We argue that whites' anger over affirmative action stems less from a lack of concern with racial equality than from a commitment to individual achievement and self-reliance. Thus, while core constituents of the Democratic party are more opposed to affirmative action than has previously been recognized, the Democrats can draw strength from the enduring commitment of many whites to the goal of racial equality.

Rethinking Housing Law by ANN Stewart

Rethinking Housing Law by ANN Stewart

Measuring the Effects of “Adults Only” Age Restrictions on Condominium Prices

Current U.S. housing policy prohibits discrimination in the sale or rental of housing or in the provision of brokerage services on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or familial status. Since 1988, an exception to this policy has permitted owners and operators of buildings and facilities that were intended to be operated as housing for older persons to discriminate against younger residents, including families with children and pregnant women, without violating the nation’s fair housing laws. This exception was clarified by the Housing for Older Persons Act of 1995 which precisely defines the type of facility that qualifies as housing for older persons. The purpose of this study is to consider whether such restrictions have a measurable effect on housing prices. Based upon data from condominium transactions in southeast Florida, the results presented here suggest that age restrictions have a positive price effect, holding other determinants of condominium prices constant.

The casualization of housing

Abstract Once, by giving long-term security of tenure and succession rights to those living in the private and public rented sectors, and ‘settled' accommodation to the homeless, housing law could be regarded as attempting 'to provide those who cannot afford to buy their own homes with a substitute for home ownership, a right to remain in occupation for at least a lifetime and often more' (Honore, 1982: 37). Today, home ownership is itself far more problematic and far less secure than in previous decades. In the private rented sector, the Housing Act 1988 has drastically curtailed security of tenure and rights of succession to tenancies. Councils are being replaced by (quasi-private) housing associations as the main providers of social housing. The homelessness legislation has been judicially interpreted as imposing no duty to provide 'settled’ accommodation at all and the Housing Bill 1996 will take the process still further. A job for life is said to be a thing of the past. How many people now can reaso...

Appraisers and the Fair Housing Law: Accessibility Requirements for the Disabled

In 1988 the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was amended to include the “handicapped” as being protected from discrimination in multiunit housing. The three general categories of discriminatory acts are re...

The Spatial Bias of Federal Housing Law and Policy: Concentrated Poverty in Urban America

The Spatial Bias of Federal Housing Law and Policy: Concentrated Poverty in Urban America

A Response to Schill and Wachter's "The Spatial Bias of Federal Housing Law and Policy"

A Response to Schill and Wachter's "The Spatial Bias of Federal Housing Law and Policy"

Stereotypes and Segregation: Neighborhoods in the Detroit Area

Two opposing hypotheses seek to explain why black-white residential segreration persists despite open housing laws. One perspective argues that discriminatory practices in the marketing of real estate are responsible. Another view contends that it is the preferences of both blacks and whites for their own neighborhoods that maintain segregation. Using data from the Detroit Area Study of 1976 and 1992, the authors test the hypothesis that stereotypes among whites play an important role in explaining their resistance to integrated neighborhoods. They conclude that stereotype use links white preferences to discriminatory real estate practices in a way that helps to explain the persistence of segregation in the Detroit area.