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28 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y 159 (2020-2021)
Tenants without Rights: Situating the Experiences of New Immigrants in the U.S. Low-Income Housing Market

handle is hein.journals/geojpovlp28 and id is 169 raw text is: Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy Volume XXVIII, Number 2, Winter 2021 Tenants Without Rights: Situating the Experiences of New Immigrants in the U.S. Low-Income Housing Market Mekonnen Firew Ayano* Immigrants who recently arrived in the United States generally are not able to exclusively possess rental properties in the formal market because they lack a steady source of income and credit history. Instead, they rent shared bedrooms, basements, attics, garages, and illegally converted units that violate housing codes and regulations. Their situations highlight the disconnect between tenant rights law and the deleterious conditions of informal residential tenancies. Tenant rights law confers a variety of rights and remedies to a residential tenant if the renter has exclusive possession of the premises. If the renter lacks exclusive possession, courts typically characterize the occupancy as a license, treating the renter as a transient occupant with contractual rights and remedies. Situating the experiences of new immigrants within the low-income housing affordability crisis, this Article proposes that courts should steer away from considering tenant status and its associated rights and remedies as a function of exclusive control of the premises. Instead, they should enforce informal tenants' legitimate interests, impose duties on those who rent out substandard units, and award damages when the rent paid is disproportionately high relative to the condition of the premises. * Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, University of Missouri School of Law. I wish to thank HelenAlvar , Steven Bender, Guyora Binder, Andrea Boyack, James Cooper, Mitchell Crusto, Randy Diamond, Wilson Freyermuth, Derrick Howard, Lucy Jewel, Erika Lietzan, Paul Litton, Isabel Medina, David Mitchell, Maria Pab6n, Amy Schmitz, and James Wooten for valuable comments and suggestions; the participants at the John Mercer Writing Workshop, Antonin Scalia Law School Faculty Workshop, University of Missouri School of Law Faculty Workshop, SEALS Conference, ClassCrits Junior Scholar Workshop, and the University at Buffalo School of Law presentation for their thoughtful questions and comments; Cindy Shearrer and Natasha Martinez for their generous help with library and research resources; and the editors at the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy for their excellent review and editing of this piece. Special thanks to Frank Bowman for reading early drafts and providing detailed comments; Jane Bestor for thoroughly reviewing a prior draft; Duncan Kennedy and Joe Singer for invaluable comments and suggestions; the University of Missouri School of Law, through Dean Lyrissa Lidsky, for generous travel and summer research grants; and my fellow East African immigrants, who cannot be named here, for providing an invaluable education in the ways in which African immigrants navigate challenges of finding a place to live and the vicissitudes of the rental housing in North American metropolises. © 2021, Mekonnen Firew Ayano. 159

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