Throughout much of the late twentieth century, social scientists and legal scholars focused considerable attention on low-income housing and landlord-tenant law. In recent years, however, interest in housing has waned, leaving many questions fundamental to the poverty debate unanswered. This article calls for a renewed focus on housing, law, and poverty, with particular attention to the housing sector where most low-income families live, unassisted: the private rental market. Surveying social-scientific research, legal analysis, and case history on affordability, access, housing conditions, forced displacement, and homelessness, this article shows how housing plays a central, crucial role in the lives of poor Americans. The poor have been central to the development of housing law, and the law itself has done much to mitigate and aggravate their poverty.

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Housing, Poverty, and the Law

Creation and maintenance of habitable housing conditions can be a challenge, particularly when occupants do not have ownership or control of the housing unit or sufficient resources to address deficiencies. A systematic review of the literature was conducted and a descriptive analysis was performed on habitability laws enacted by the 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine variability in the strength of habitability laws and their potential to affect resident health. The systematic review stratified states according to first dates of adoption and last dates of annotations to habitability laws. The descriptive analysis referred to as the Habitability Element Rating Scale, scored and ranked states according to their basic level of consistency with the Uniform Residential Landlord Tenant Act (URLTA); weights were applied to reflect each element's potential to influence health and party responsibility. The review and analysis found substantial variation in habitability laws across states and indic...

Examining the strength of state habitability laws across the United States of America

Professor Moskovitz has prepared a timely article on the implications of the recent California Supreme Court case, Green v. Superior Court, and its innovative doctrine, the use of an implied warranty of habitability as a defense to eviction for nonpayment of rent. The article explores the entire field-from what constitutes a breach to how protective orders are to be applied, even suggesting a creative solution to the difficult problem of measuring damages. Professor Moskovitz brings to this task long experience in both the study and the practice of landlord-tenant law; indeed, he co-argued the Green case. Drawing on his knowledge of litigation he has included throughout the article practical advice for the attorney immersed in landlord tenant matters. This advice is contained in textual footnotes; for ready identification each is set off by extra space and captioned \"practice note.\

Myron Moskovitz

Papers

The Implied Warranty of Habitability: A New Doctrine Raising New Issues