The following resources are designed to help understand and navigate estate administration in New Jersey when a loved one passes with a will. A flyer is also available for when a loved one passes without a will here.
Read More
The following resources are designed to help understand and navigate estate administration in New Jersey.
Read MoreTo aid municipalities in regulating anonymous investor buying of 1-4 unit homes we drafted this model ordinance. A companion memorandum analyzes its legality and effectiveness under New Jersey law.
Read More
Few race-conscious public policies displaced African-American individuals and families like the federal urban renewal program from 1949 to 1974. Hundreds of cities spent millions of taxpayer dollars engaging in "slum removal" of entire neighborhoods only recently occupied by Blacks from the Great Migration. Their forced relocation—almost always without statutorily promised relocation expenses and assistance—was a harbinger of the modern ghetto and a blueprint for urban planning approaches that continue to this day.
As part of CLiME's Displacement Project, we began a broad inquiry into urban renewal in 2021. The results will follow in the form of academic papers, policy briefs and here, a growing archive of hard-to-find data on the program's implementation in select U.S. cities. CLiME Fellow and Bloustein graduate Erica Copeland assembled variables on the location, demographic variables and costs associated with primarily African-American displacement for a select period of time. We hope this contributes to a growing body of academic research on an under-appreciated aspect of systemic racism carried out by the federal and local governments at midcentury, whose wealth-retarding effects persist.
Read MoreSUMMARY: Through this final rule, HUD provides HUD program participants with an approach to more effectively and efficiently incorporate into their planning processes the duty to affirmatively further the purposes and policies of the Fair Housing Act, which is title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The Fair Housing Act not only prohibits discrimination but, in conjunction with other statutes, directs HUD’s program participants to take significant actions to overcome historic patterns of segregation, achieve truly balanced and integrated living patterns, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities that are free from discrimination. The approach to affirmatively furthering fair housing carried out by HUD program participants prior to this rule, which involved an analysis of impediments to fair housing choice and a certification that the program participant will affirmatively further fair housing, has not been as effective as originally envisioned. This rule refines the prior approach by replacing the analysis of impediments with a fair housing assessment that should better inform program participants’ planning processes with a view toward better aiding HUD program participants to fulfill this statutory obligation.
Read MoreUnder New Jersey’s Mount Laurel Doctrine on exclusionary zoning and affordable housing, and the state Fair Housing Act enacted in 1985, all New Jersey municipalities and State agencies with land use authority have a constitutional obligation to create a realistic opportunity for development of their fair share of the regional need for housing affordable to low and moderate income households. This housing need, and associated fair share obligations, has three components: Rehabilitation Need, Prior Round obligation (1987-1999) and Prospective Need (post-1999). This document presents the methodology for calculating and allocating regional prospective housing need for 1999-2024 to New Jersey’s 565 municipalities, and then calculating the Net Prospective component of each municipality’s fair share housing obligation. It also provides the results of these calculations for all municipalities, calculating their Net Prospective Need for 1999-2024 using the Prior Round (1987-1999) methodology.
Read MoreIn response to requests from State, State-funded, and Entitlement jurisdictions, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has developed this Fair Housing Planning Guide. Many of you requested information on fulfilling the fair housing requirements of the Consolidated Plan and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Regulations. (The Consolidated Plan Regulation uses the term “affirmatively furthering fair housing” and the CDBG Regulation uses the term “fair housing planning.” This Guide uses “fair housing planning” to refer to the affirmative obligations of both regulations.)
This Guide is written to provide you with information on how to conduct an Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (AI), undertake activities to correct the identified impediments, and the types of documentary records to be maintained. This Guide should be used by State, State-funded, and Entitlement jurisdictions along with applicable HUD regulations pertaining to fair housing.
Read MoreSUMMARY: Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended (Fair Housing Act or Act), prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of dwellings and in other housing-related activities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin.1 HUD, which is statutorily charged with the authority and responsibility for interpreting and enforcing the Fair Housing Act and with the power to make rules implementing the Act, has long interpreted the Act to prohibit practices with an unjustified discriminatory effect, regardless of whether there was an intent to discriminate. The eleven federal courts of appeals that have ruled on this issue agree with this interpretation. While HUD and every federal appellate court to have ruled on the issue have determined that liability under the Act may be established through proof of discriminatory effects, the statute itself does not specify a standard for proving a discriminatory effects violation. As a result, although HUD and courts are in agreement that practices with discriminatory effects may violate the Fair Housing Act, there has been some minor variation in the application of the discriminatory effects standard.
Read MoreEXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This report presents results from the first phase of the latest national Housing Discrimination Study (HDS2000), sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and conducted by the Urban Institute. These results are based on 4,600 paired tests, conducted in 23 metropolitan areas nationwide during the summer and fall of 2000. In a paired test, two individuals—one minority and the other white—pose as otherwise identical homeseekers, and visit real estate or rental agents to inquire about the availability of advertised housing units. This methodology provides direct evidence of differences in the treatment minorities and whites experience when they search for housing.
Read More