What’s wrong with the world today?
Things just got to get better
Sho’ ain’t what the leaders say
Maybe we should write a letterSaid dear Mr. Man, we don’t understand
Why poor people keep struggling
But you don’t lend a helping hand
Matthew 5:5 say,
The meek shall inherit the Earth.. . .
Who told me, Mr. Man, that working round the clock
Would buy me a big house in the hood, with cigarette ads
on every block?
Who told me, Mr. Man, that I got a right to moan?
How ‘bout this big ol’ hole in the ozone?. . .
Listen, ain’t no sense in voting, same song with a different name
Might not be in the back of the bus but it sho’ feel just the same
Ain’t nothing fair about welfare, ain’t no assistance in aids
Ain’t nothing affirmative about your actions till the people get paidYour thousand years are up, now you gotta share the land
Section I, the 14th Amendment says,
No state shall deprive any person of life
Liberty or property, without due process of law
Mr. Man, we want to end this letter with three words
We tired a-y’all
Prince’s lyrics ring true today. Although prescient in 2004, before the recession set back the North and South Minneapolis neighborhoods in which he grew up, Prince addressed the growing concerns that any Legal Aid lawyer knows full well: the frustration and anger from low-income people of color, immigrants, and others struggling in the midst of desperate personal circumstances, dilapidated housing conditions, and exploitative rental practices. Housing discrimination litigation, and disparate-impact claims in particular, have struggled to make headway on these issues. Moreover, housing development policies have failed the communities they were supposed to serve, making it difficult to improve existing affordable housing stock and to enable families to make real choices about where they can live.
Today, community awareness of housing conditions, rental practices, and the historic antecedents of these conditions and practices is especially acute. Still unclear is how to systemically address these problems. After decades of trying to increase housing opportunity by fighting against housing segregation, demographic statistics tell us that, overall, there has been little improvement. The Twin Cities metro area remains one of the most racially segregated urban landscapes in the country. Legal Aid attorneys also know from decades of representing minority families facing housing discrimination that much work remains to be done in this area.
One tool to combat discrimination has seen some resurgence in recent years: the disparate-impact claim brought under the federal Fair Housing Act. This claim asserts that facially neutral policies of government- and private-sector actors have a discriminatory effect on minority populations. This claim’s use may be a particularly effective strategy in parts of the country where much of the discriminatory activity tends to be more subterranean than overt—more “Minnesota Nice” than in-your-face obvious.
This article discusses the development of fair-housing disparate-impact jurisprudence and its current resurgence in the Twin Cities. Part II sets out the types of housing discrimination issues seen in a legal aid practice in the Twin Cities. Part III reviews the development of fair-housing disparate-impact cases around the nation and recent Housing and Urban Development rule promulgation governing disparate-impact order-of-proof criteria. Part IV discusses the trajectory of fair-housing disparate-impact jurisprudence closer to home in the Eighth Circuit. Finally, Part V assesses the current state of litigation involving disparate-impact claims in the Twin Cities and how these claims might be used in the future on behalf of Legal Aid’s client communities.