Prof. Cotton: In Landlord-Tenant Disputes, 'We've Made It Very Difficult'
April 28, 2017
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
In a major work of long-form journalism, The Baltimore Sun has found deep-seated problems in the system for resolving disputes between landlords and tenants in the city. Michele Cotton, associate professor in the University of Baltimore's Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, serves as an important source for the piece, which spotlights her research into these disputes as they play out in court.
"Dismissed: Tenants Lose, Landlords Win in Baltimore's Rent Court" reveals a decades-long devolution of that part of the justice system which is devoted to rental-housing disputes. Cotton's research, for example, determined that officials are leaving out "findings of fact" in filling out the records of landlord-tenant proceedings. This lack of rigor, she and others conclude, contributes to a system that is out of balance and not serving the needs of the citizens of Baltimore.
"It's up to tenants to assert their rights," Cotton says. "But we've made it very difficult. It's no wonder our housing stock in low-income communities is in such poor shape."
Read the article.
Learn more about Prof. Cotton.