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24 TortSource 6 (2021-2022)
No Roof for Your Reefer! Medical Cannabis Tenants Need Patient Protections in Federally Assisted Housing

handle is hein.journals/tortso24 and id is 46 raw text is: TortSource: Spring 2022 No Roof for Your Reefer! Medical Cannabis Tenants Need Patient Protections in Federally Assisted Housing By Andrea Steel and Lila Greiner Andrea Steel is a member in the Real Estate Practice group at Frost Brown Todd LLC's Houston office. She is part of the Firm's multifamily housing sub team as well as its manufacturing industry - hemp sub team. Ms. Steel serves as a Vice Chair of the ABA's Cannabis Law & Policy Committee of TIPS, as well as Co-Chair of the Legislative Advisement Committee of the International Cannabis Bar Association. She has experience representing cannabis business operators across the supply chain and successfully launched and grew the cannabis practice group at her prior law firm before moving to Frost Brown Todd. She also has significant experience representing private developers and public housing authorities with affordable housing development transactions with a focus on low-income housing tax credits. Ms. Steel can be reached at asteel@fbtlaw.com. Lila Greiner is a recent graduate of Rice University, where she majored in Political Science and Latin American Studies. She interned with Frost Brown Todd over the fall of her senior year, where she worked on a variety of research and legal matters. Ms. Greiner has an interest in social justice and using the law to expose and correct inequalities. She can be reached at lila.greiner@ gmail. com. One of the most fascinating aspects of cannabis law in America is that, despite marijuana being illegal at the federal level, almost every state allows for its legal use in some form or fashion. As of this writing, 36 states, Washington, DC, and four US territories have laws authorizing the medical use of cannabis. Additional states allow for low-THC medical cannabis, but these state programs are so restrictive that they are typically not considered legal medical states. Despite this overwhelming majority, families and individuals living in affordable housing across the nation risk losing their homes because the substance remains federally illegal, with no patient protections in place. Until this federal/state conflict is addressed, property owners-including public housing authorities (PHAs)-are left having to carefully navigate satisfying resident medical needs while remaining federally compliant. Affordable housing comes in many forms, but the focus in this article is on federally assisted public housing and housing choice vouchers. Public housing and Section 8 housing are often used interchangeably, though they have different practical implications. Public housing refers to housing built and operated by PHAs using federal money and solely serving low-income residents with incomes not exceeding 80 percent of the area median income (AMI). Housing choice vouchers, often referred to as Section 8, allow holders to choose any housing that meets the program requirements, as opposed to being limited only to subsidized public housing developments. Like public housing, eligibility is determined by a PHA based on income, but private landlords own and manage the voucher properties. Vouchers are given, to the extent available, to applicants whose incomes do not exceed 50 percent AMI, though most are reserved to those whose incomes do not exceed 30 percent AMI. The Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (QHWRA), which generally governs various aspects of HUD's public housing and tenant-based Section 8 housing assistance programs, including the housing choice voucher program, contains provisions applicable to the use of marijuana in federally subsidized affordable housing. For applicants, if the PHA or private landlord determines any member Published in TortSource: Volume 24, Number 3, ©2022 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. 6 TIPS

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