ChuckE Law - Community Lawyering in Miami

In the session that just ended, the Florida legislature passed one of the most anti-tenant bills that has come before it in the last decade, allowing landlords to accept   partial payments of rent   after starting the eviction process and to cure any faulty notices in the middle of the eviction proceeding.    That it passed is not all that remarkable.    The legislature passed a host of anti-working people and homeowner bills, outlawing local sick leave ordinances, refusing to expand Medicaid, and expediting foreclosures on homeowners.    What is most remarkable is how little opposition there was. While the bills targeting workers and home owners had hosts of labor, homeowner   and community organizations educating the legislators, the anti-tenant bill passed silently with no more opposition than a few public interest tenant lawyers.   Why is it in Florida, where so many groups are now recognizing the importance of organizing to...

Good article in the Sunday NY Times on the demolition of public housing in Atlanta. Begins with praise by Renee Glover but then gives good coverage to critics. Over the past 15 years, Atlanta has bulldozed about 15,000 units, spread across 32 housing projects, some of which once contained as many as 2,500 residents. . . . Critics of the demolitions worry about the toll on residents, who must qualify for vouchers, struggle to find affordable housing and often move to only slightly less impoverished neighborhoods. Especially in a troubled economy, civil rights groups say, uprooting can lead to homelessness if more low-income housing is not made available. Lawsuits have been filed in many other cities, generally without success, that claim that similar relocations violate residents’ civil rights and resegregate the poor. . . Over all, 195,000 public housing units have met the wrecking ball across the country since 2006, and over 230,000 more units are scheduled for demolition,...

From the National Low Income Housing Coalition Memo to Members June 19, 2009 House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank (D-MA) and Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) wrote to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan on June 15 asking that HUD issue a one-year moratorium on the demolition or disposition of public housing units. In the letter, Mr. Frank and Ms. Waters note that 120,000 units of public housing have been lost within the last 10 years, and that public housing is being lost at a faster rate than it is being replaced. This loss effectively exacerbates the “affordable housing needs of our most vulnerable populations,” the letter states, and forces families to live in increasingly substandard living conditions. Mr. Frank and Ms. Waters underscore the idea that preservation of pre-existing affordable housing units is essential because other affordable housing mechanisms, including housing vouchers, will not be useful if ther...

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity held a hearing on June 4 on its draft Section 8 Voucher Reform Act (SEVRA). Subcommittee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) is expected to introduce the bill in coming weeks. The draft bill includes many provisions widely supported by housing advocates: an authorization of 150,000 new vouchers; rent simplification provisions, which would allow housing agencies to recertify the incomes of people on fixed incomes every three years instead of annually, as is now the case and would allow housing agencies to use income verified by other federal programs; new rent provisions are also intended to encourage residents to increase their earned income; increases in voucher holders’ ability to live in neighborhoods of their choosing; protections for tenants in other federally subsidized properties who are at risk of losing their assistance; expansion of housing agencies’ ability to project-base vouchers. Several organizatio...

President Obama signed “The Protecting Tenants in Foreclosure Act” on May 20, 2009. This bill includes a nationwide 90 day pre-eviction notice requirement for tenants in foreclosed properties. The provisions of the bill are effective on enactment, May 20, 2009. Specifically, the new law will require that the new owner after foreclosure must provide bona fide tenants with 90 days notice prior to eviction and allow bona fide tenants with leases to occupy the property until the end of the lease term (unless the unit is sold to a purchaser who will occupy the property in which case the tenant must be given 90 days notice to terminate the tenancy.) The National Low Income Housing Coalition has detailed information explaining the protections in the new bill.

Thanks to the National Housing Trust The National Housing Trust has a briefing paper on the new Weatherization money. As NHT states, the money should be targeted to preserving affordable multifamily housing. It can be an extremely important piece of financing for preservation of existing multifamily housing. The following is an excerpt from the National Housing Trust paper. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included a dramatic increase in funding for Weatherization. But many state policies will need to change for families and seniors in multifamily housing to benefit. One-third of households are renters and energy retrofits of rental housing are eligible under the Weatherization program. Older multifamily housing- which is home to many of our nation’s low and very low-income residents- is at risk from disrepair and in need of renovations. But in many states, Weatherization funding has significantly favored single-family housing. Right now, state administering agenc...

Thanks to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty S. 896, the Mckinney Act reauthorization bill, as passed by the Senate on May 6, 2009 also included an important renter protection amendment offered by Senator John Kerry (D-MA). Senator Kerry's amendment would require that in any foreclosure made "on a federally-related mortgage loan or on any dwelling or residential real property after the date of enactment", tenants in such dwellings with bona-fide leases or tenancies would have the right to remain in the unit for the remainder of their lease and would have the right to 90 days notice prior to eviction. A recent review of state foreclosure laws by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Low-Income Housing Coalition found that renter notification laws are uneven across states and in only a few states did tenancy survive foreclosure (for a copy of the report click here, Without Just Cause .) The Senate passed its version of S. ...