Housing as a Human Right: A Proposed Alternative Institutional Structure in Sacramento

Abstract

The pandemic brought with it unprecedented job loss and financial insecurity, further exacerbating the housing affordability and eviction crisis. As moratoriums end and local governments find ways to deal with different elements of the housing crisis in lieu of federal intervention, some are proposing various forms of a “right to housing.” In this article, we consider one policy proposed in Sacramento, California in an attempt to highlight the complicated nature of the right (or in this case, bundle of rights). To this end, we use the Legal-Economic Performance framework to consider the potential performance implications of the proposed institutional change. We find that Sacramento’s proposal, while intended to address some aspects of the homelessness crisis in the city, does not create a right to housing as traditionally described. Rather, it creates a complicated shifting of legal relations that result in only the most limited form of a right to temporary shelter as defined by the city being granted to homeless individuals. More notably, the ordinance will create a duty on homeless individuals to move while exposing them to the city’s chosen methods of enforcement.

Keywords:

• institutional analysis
• impact analysis
• right to housing
• Hohfeldian legal analysis
• legal-economic performance

JEL Classification Codes:

• B52
• B50
• D02
• K38
• R00
• P48

Notes

1 Examples include the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009.

2 The basic Hohfeldian framework consists of four pairs of jural correlatives: right/duties, privilege/exposure, power/liability, and immunity/disability. These four relationships are both universal and irreducible, and include one entitlement (left) and one disablement (right). See Hohfeld (1913) or Klammer and Scorsone (2022) chapter 2 for further detail.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Klammer

Sarah Klammer and Eric Scorsone are at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University.

Eric Scorsone

Sarah Klammer and Eric Scorsone are at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University.