Student Contributor – Page 10 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Addressing the Housing Crisis on a Statewide Level

Post author:Robert Ernest
Post published:January 8, 2020
Post category:Milwaukee Poverty & Law Public Student Contributor

Milwaukee residents know firsthand that many cities in this country are facing an affordable housing crisis. The California legislature has recently taken major steps to address this problem. In addition to providing other protections for tenants, California’s Tenant Protection Act of 2019 has limited annual rent increases to 5% plus inflation for the next decade. This legislation was enacted on January 1, 2020, making California the second state to institute a statewide cap on rent increases.

Whether or not this is the best way to solve the affordable housing crisis is debatable. On the one hand such a restriction seems to oppose free-market ideals by limiting landlords’ incentives to invest in housing. Furthermore, although capping rent increases may provide many people with a relatively expedient solution to unaffordable housing, it does not address all the root-causes of the crisis and may even make the problem worse in the long run. In this regard, the cap may be likened to giving a person a fish rather than teaching the person how to fish.

Welcome to Our January Guest Blogger

Post author:Bruce E. Boyden
Post published:January 6, 2020
Post category:Public Student Contributor

Photo of Robert Ernest Our student guest blogger for January is 1L Robert Ernest. Before attending law school, Robert worked in youth ministry and ran his own business renting out bounce houses. He has a B.A. in philosophy from the University of St. Thomas, and in his free time enjoys traveling, cooking, hiking, and rock climbing. Welcome Robert!

The Process of Writing About Your Childhood Library

Post author:Monica Reida
Post published:December 3, 2019
Post category:Milwaukee Public Student Contributor

How do you properly write about the Midwest? Since 2016, the Midwest and the Rust Belt are often lumped together as an area some people refer to as “Trump Country,” an anonymous area filled with diners of people who cling to guns and Bibles. There is nothing remotely interesting, other than possibly Chicago, and an article about how an area previously dismissed by coastal newspapers is up-and-coming because of places that will look good on Instagram. Belt Publishing, a small press in Cleveland, OH, was started in 2013 with the purpose of publishing the work and voices of those from the Midwest, Rust Belt, and elsewhere.

Midwest Architecture Journeys, released in October 2019 from Belt Publishing, examines a diverse range of spaces that would possibly be overlooked in a survey of the buildings of the Midwest. Among the topics covered in the book are the Cahokia Mounds in southern Illinois, flea markets, Lillian Leenhouts’s work in Milwaukee, Fermilab, public housing towers, mausoleums, Iowa rest areas, parking lots in Flint, and a post office that became a public library in Waterloo, Iowa. The Waterloo Public Library is the subject of a piece I contributed to the book, “Please Return Again.”