Projects

The Center will act as a watchdog, protecting efforts to build or preserve affordable housing from unnecessary interference by local and state governments in the currently fragile financial situation. The Center also will provide a legal prod to governments to use their housing trust funds (HTFs) to produce and preserve affordable housing to the maximum extent feasible. HTFs can leverage at least $8 billion for affordable housing in a single year. HTF resources are a crucial way to stimulate the economy as well as to house the disadvantaged.

Generally, the Center will provide “impact” legal services, selecting and pursuing cases as a means to achieve broad and lasting reductions in exclusionary housing policies, in addition to successful results in the cases involved. The highest courts of a growing number of states have declared exclusionary zoning illegal — including in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. As New Jersey’s highest court has recognized, other exclusionary housing policies are likewise illegal. For details on those rulings, see Exclusionary Housing Policies article on this website.

However, effective remedies for exclusionary housing policies have not yet been implemented even in most of those states – not to mention the rest of the Nation. The Center will build on the helpful judicial decisions, as well as the state and local affordable housing statutes and regulations to date.