Welfare as Wrecking Ball: Constructing Public Responsibility in Legal Encounters Over Public Housing Demolition

TY - JOUR

T1 - Welfare as Wrecking Ball

T2 - Constructing Public Responsibility in Legal Encounters Over Public Housing Demolition

AU - Robinson, John N.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2016 American Bar Foundation

PY - 2016/6/1

Y1 - 2016/6/1

N2 - Scholarship on welfare privatization illustrates how the process often curtails and undermines public responsibility for the poor. In this article, I examine how recipients, policy makers, and judges participate in the legal process as a means of challenging and defending privatization. I look at cases of litigation initiated by public housing tenants between 1985 and 2012 to fight the demolition of their homes to explore the changing meaning of public responsibility within a shrinking public sector. My findings show that as legislative and administrative reforms steered courts toward a more flexible understanding of public responsibility, courts gave increasing attention to the economic hardships experienced by the state itself, while downplaying the plight of low-income tenants.

AB - Scholarship on welfare privatization illustrates how the process often curtails and undermines public responsibility for the poor. In this article, I examine how recipients, policy makers, and judges participate in the legal process as a means of challenging and defending privatization. I look at cases of litigation initiated by public housing tenants between 1985 and 2012 to fight the demolition of their homes to explore the changing meaning of public responsibility within a shrinking public sector. My findings show that as legislative and administrative reforms steered courts toward a more flexible understanding of public responsibility, courts gave increasing attention to the economic hardships experienced by the state itself, while downplaying the plight of low-income tenants.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84978428074&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84978428074&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12210

DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12210

M3 - Article

VL - 41

SP - 670

EP - 700

JO - Law & Social Inquiry

JF - Law & Social Inquiry

SN - 0897-6546

IS - 3

ER -