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    Volume 29, Number 2

      November 2020

    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Response to COVID-19 and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act

    Helen C. Huang, Elizabeth M. Davis, Hugh Lutz, and Amy L. Brown

    In late December 2019, a novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak was identified by the World Health Organization (WHO), leading Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to declare a Public Health Emergency in the United States on January 31, 2020, pursuant to his authority under section 319 of the Public Health Service Act.1 The COVID19 outbreak grew to pandemic status as of March 11, 2020, according to the WHO.

    Digest of Recent Literature

    Fighting the Coronavirus & Protecting the Unhoused: Policies & Polling

    Leo Beletsky and Sterling Johnson

    This article begins by explaining that federal government data indicatesthat more than 500,000 people in the United States are homeless, and themagnitude and consequences of homelessness have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Homeless populations are at a higher riskfor contracting and transmitting COVID-19, because they are more likelyto come into contact with potentially infected surfaces and people. Homeless individuals’ increased risk stems from the difficulty in effectively practicing “social distancing” while homeless and the inability to follow theCenter for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines to stay home.

    Organizational Profile

    Articles

    Freefall: Why Our Housing Safety Net Is Failing the Lowest-Income Renters During COVID-19

    Elizabeth J. Mueller, Heather K. Way, and Jake Wegmann

    President Roosevelt famously described “one third of a nation ill-housed”in his 1937 inaugural address following his re-election1 and later that yearchampioned legislation that created a federal public housing program.2Eight decades later, while much progress has been made in expandingthe nation’s access to safe and affordable housing, only one in three of ournation’s 11.2 million extremely low income renters has access to an affordable home.

    Implications of Dodd-Frank for Housing Counselors

    Rita W. Green

    This year marks the tenth anniversary of landmark legislation that waspassed in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, which was marked bya mortgage crisis, spurred by an overextension of credit and foreclosures,that have consequences still being felt by families, the financial industry,and the global economy (Gerecke, 2016). It is important that housing policy achieves the goal of increasing homeownership rates without encouraging irresponsible borrowing and lending to accomplish that objective.Wall Street reform and consumer protection are the two areas that the2010 Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) was intended to address. The purpose of thispaper is to raise awareness about a provision of this law that is designedto address protection for consumers: requiring housing counselors to beindividually certified.

    2020 Affordable Housing & Community Development Law Student Legal Writing Competition

    Relief for Those Who Need It Least: How Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8–30g’s Moratorium Provision Rewards Towns for Making Inadequate Strides in Addressing Housing Segregation in Connecticut and Offers Lessons for the Nation

    Daniel Chapple

    Daniel Katz, a commissioner on the Town of Westport, Connecticut’s Planning and Zoning Commission, made this statement in 1985 in response to aletter written by William Collins, mayor of neighboring Norwalk, in whichCollins accused Katz and Westport of creating a “zoning wall of exclusion” to keep out less affluent residents.2 Despite generating 5,130 new jobsbetween 1970 and 1980, Westport only added 616 new housing units overthis same time period.