LITERATURE REVIEW

RESEARCH SITE AND METHODS

LENIENCY IN COURT

Legal and municipal actors show leniency to low-income defendants in court. But they have less discretion in deciding who ends up in court in the first place. In fact, inspectors are compelled to send buildings with certain code violations to court (see Bartram Reference Bartram2022). “Anytime it’s dangerous or hazardous … is a court case,” a court inspector told me. I had asked him what kinds of issues typically prompt an inspector to recommend a property for building court. He elaborated: “anything falling down, gonna fall down, gonna hurt somebody, or is immediately detrimental to the person living there, you know, unsanitary, you know, something bad, it goes to court, that’s automatic.” Another inspector said something similar:

He gestured to the small office room we were sitting in. A court inspector of almost twenty years expanded to explain the rule of thumb for violations that always result in a court case: “there are four or five things: walls, smokes and carbons, conversions, and porches.” Violations related to walls are often a result of structural issues in a building. Smokes and carbons refer to incidents when landlords do not provide smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in rental units. Conversions mean parts of buildings that have been converted into living areas, or even separate apartments, without plans or permits. Finally, the City is very strict when it comes to any porch that is not code compliant in response to a porch collapse in 2003 that killed thirteen people and seriously injured fifty-seven others. Inspectors spoke with consistency about the severity of conditions and the types of issues that result in a court case.

But, once properties are in court, inspectors and judges have a great deal of leeway in enforcement and dismissing a case, as an inspector explained:

During this interview, the inspector hinted at the options building court judges have when properties have violations. The inspector stressed that courtroom actors insist some issues, such as missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, get resolved before allowing property owners more time to make other repairs. A judge can also grant a property owner additional time to make repairs, or judges can dismiss a case with “partial compliance,” which means not all violations have been addressed. In short, courtroom actors can, and do, prioritize issues.

Decisions that courtroom actors make are based on their assessments of the defendants. “As a court inspector,” a veteran court inspector told me, “I see the owner, I see the situation, I get to understand how they got to this place, now you can make a better assessment of how we can try and help them get out of this bad place.” Seeing “the situation” and making a “better assessment” is tied to a property owner’s financial status. City attorneys collect property records and other financial information about defendants, which court inspectors use to “try and help” property owners “get out of this bad place.” An inspector explained this to me one day during an interview:

This inspector and his courtroom colleagues are more likely to prioritize issues and work with property owners with fewer resources. In practice, this means that property owners who live in single-family properties or small rental buildings, often in communities of color on Chicago’s South and West Sides. This surprising finding—that legal actors in building court are more likely to show leniency for residents in communities of color—aligns with other work on building code enforcement officials, which stresses that professional evaluations of buildings differ from those of people (see Bartram Reference Bartram2021, Reference Bartram2022).

I saw courtroom actors making lenient decisions time and time again. One morning, I watched as a court inspector, attorney, and property owner of a three-unit apartment building discussed the twenty-four violations on record from the building—ranging from a dangerous porch to trash accumulation in the corridors. The building was in a majority Latinx and low-income neighborhood. “Just fix up one apartment,” the inspector requested “make sure there are smokes and carbon detectors, and fix the porch, then I’ll “probably let it go.” The inspector suggested the case would be dismissed if the owner took care of some of the issues. Importantly, however, the property owner would not need to resolve all the violations listed on record for the building. But they would need to return to the courtroom for more hearings until some of the work was complete.

HASSLE OF LENIENCY

Despite the leniency of courtroom actors, the experiences of defendants in building court are similar to those in legal settings where leniency is not the norm. In this section, I build on Kohler-Hausmann’s (Reference Kohler-Hausmann2018) concept of “procedural hassle,” which entails delaying, engaging, and compelling defendants to conform to the demands of the court. Simply showing up for court may mean lost wages from missed work, the cost of childcare, attorney’s fees, and wasted time. I demonstrate that defendants in building court experience an analogous difficulty: the hassle of leniency.

Judges and inspectors in building court show leniency by allowing property owners additional time to fix issues. “We understand. We’ll work with you. And give you a nice long amount of time,” an inspector said to the owner of a small single-family property in a low-income neighborhood, home to mostly Black and Latinx homeowners and renters in small buildings. The owner appeared to be Black and roughly in her sixties. She had just finished explaining that she was receiving counseling for hoarding and her husband was dealing with mental illness. “You just need a cleanup,” the inspector stated, reviewing his notes, “nothing imminently dangerous, just fix up the walls and ceiling.” Sure enough, the judge ruled that the owner could have another nine months to get this work done. Such an expression of sympathy does not resemble how we commonly think of legal settings. Yet I saw frequent instances of courtroom actors giving property owners similar lengths of time and amounts of compassion.

One morning I was in court to hear an inspector’s conversation with a woman who appeared to be White and in her twenties. Like many others in building court, the woman’s family property had a porch that needed repairs. She hushed her baby in its stroller between relaying her story to the court inspector. Her father had died a few years ago and her mother was housebound. The property was a three-flat building in a racially and ethnically diverse neighborhood, which had pockets of poverty alongside blocks of middle-income residents. Old three-flat buildings were gradually being replaced by small condominium buildings.

This was the woman’s second court date, and she had promised to have made progress on the porch by now. She showed the inspector photos on her phone of some work she had completed, including removing some debris and fixing some door glass. But nothing had been done to the porch. The inspector looked at her. “Your family has owned the building for a long time, right?” he asked, and watched as the woman nodded. He agreed to allow her more time and the judge set her another court date four months later. “That’s a long time” he said to her “so you should be done by then.” The inspector and judge were showing leniency by allowing the owner additional time. The contrast between this moment in building court and accounts of eviction court is stark. It seems highly unlikely, from existing accounts, that eviction court judges would either delay the proceeding or provide additional time to gather rent money if a tenant’s father had died, causing a loss of income and inability to pay rent.

Courtroom actors allow extra time even when they are uncertain property owners will ever make repairs. The owner of a two-flat rental building in a historically working-class Latinx neighborhood comprised of mostly midcentury bungalow buildings explained to the inspector that she felt unable to begin working on the court-mandated porch repairs and leaking roof because her tenants were moving out as a result of these conditions and she was about to lose rent. The court allowed her an additional six months to begin work. “I don’t think it’ll ever get done,” I heard the court inspector mutter as the property owner left the room. A building court inspector explained to me that this was not one-time occurrence:

Extra time—to make repairs, to come up with funds to make repairs, or to find an affordable architect or contractor—is likely a welcome relief to many property owners. Less time to complete these tasks could mean rushed repair jobs or being forced to use less affordable or reliable contractors and architects. Similarly, delay is sometimes the only course of reprieve from the state for poor people if the request comes from the defendant (see Sabbeth Reference Sabbeth2018). Yet, the extra time the court affords to struggling homeowners—as a means of leniency—is not always beneficial in the case of building court. The longer a property owner has an open court case, the more procedural hassle they must endure.

Procedural hassle involves compelling defendants to conform to courtroom demands, such as showing up for court. But this frequently entails lost wages from missing work, additional costs for childcare, potentially paying attorney’s fees, not to mention wasting time. All of these “hassles” occur on top of the costs to owners for making repairs necessary to eventually get their cases dismissed. Hassle is particularly significant in building court because, as judges and inspectors attested, cases regularly go on for years with intermittent court dates usually every three or six months. The longest I observed had been ongoing for nearly eight years. Consequently, the hassle of leniency permeates years of defendants’ lives.

Kohler-Hausmann (Reference Kohler-Hausmann2018) demonstrates the disparate and detrimental effects of procedural hassle on defendants with scarce resources. In building court, property owners with scarce resources are also most likely to experience procedural hassle, but this happens in spite of the leniency they are shown by inspectors and judges, who are prone to showing leniency to property owners they believe are struggling financially. What’s more, defendants with scarce resources are most likely to need more time to gather funds to make repairs; therefore, the odds are even higher of them undergoing more procedural hassle than their wealthier counterparts.

PROPERTY MARKERS

Leniency on the part of courtroom actors means that property owners can leave building court with unresolved violations. And unresolved violations linger on property records for the buildings in question. One morning, a judge dismissed a case, opting not to make the owners—who appeared to be White and roughly in their fifties—pay fines or fees. Property records show that they are the longtime owners of this three-flat rental in a mixed-income neighborhood, known for its concentration of Vietnamese residents and restaurants. The three-flat sat among taller residential buildings and other small rental properties. Then judge’s decision came shortly after an inspector had told the couple, “the only thing left is you need to clean up around the porch. I won’t make you get a permit.”

I noticed the phrase “I won’t make you get a permit,” as something of a mantra in building court. A few weeks later, in another courtroom, I heard the inspector say something similar to the new owner of another two-flat rental. The building was one of a handful of small residential buildings that shared a block with some commercial properties in a low-income and historically Latinx neighborhood. “We’re dismissing this today,” he told them, “but you still can’t use the attic as an apartment because you don’t have a permit.” This inspector added something else: “That will still be on your title.” By this, he meant that the violation—for insufficient permits and illegal use—would remain on record for the building as something I call a property marker. I use the term property marker to denote a negative credential on record for a property, which is evidence of an engagement with the legal system (Feeley Reference Feeley1979; Kohler-Hausmann Reference Kohler-Hausmann2018). Building on previous research, I show that properties—and not just people—can be negatively credentialed.

As with most other large US cities, Chicago’s records of building violations are visible online through the Open Data Portal.Footnote ³ Property owners, tenants, developers, buyers, sellers, city officials, and the media can easily see the violation history of a building and whether violations have been marked as resolved. While other digital records, such as eviction records or criminal records, tend to stem from punitive logics of surveillance, posting building violations online stems from a progressive mandate of transparency and accountability (see City of Chicago 2012).Footnote ⁴ An inspector of fourteen years explained one of the implications of the publicly available data:

The inspector laid out the ways that online evidence of property markers—even minor building violations—can negatively affect property owners. Property markers do have concrete financial implications for their owners. A study of building violations and property prices in Chicago over time demonstrates that buildings with unresolved violations on their record, for example, systematically sell for less than comparable buildings in the same area (see Bartram Reference Bartram2019b). The more unresolved violations on record, the lower the sales price. Thus, when building court actors dismiss cases with unresolved issues—which they tend to do as an act of leniency toward some property owners—these unresolved issues mark their properties and lead to lower sales prices. Furthermore, the effect is greater in magnitude for less-expensive properties (Bartram Reference Bartram2019b), suggesting that low-income property owners suffer the ramifications of property markers—which occur in an environment of courtroom leniency—the most.

Property markers do not only lower property value. They also jeopardize property owners’ opportunities to afford to remove them. The government will not provide loans for properties with serious code violations (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 2018). Not fixing recorded violations thus risks furthering poor people’s need for—yet unlikelihood to receive—loans and refinancing, preventing them from benefitting from property ownership. In this way, building court leniency toward low-income homeowners threatens to entrench their entanglements with debt and property. To be sure, requiring the violations be fixed by a property owner with no access to resources is not realistic, so the alternative to leniency without assuring resources would not assuage the negative financial ramifications either.

An additional consequence is that, as the inspector suggests above, property markers are public knowledge, which means that developers can profit from the relatively low sales prices of buildings with property markers. As other research shows, dilapidated property can be a moral and reputational force that outside investors deploy for financial gain by using them as focal point to justify new investment (Parker Reference Parker2018). At financially opportune times, property acquisition companies and investment firms buy up high volumes of dilapidated buildings, including single-family homes, convert them into rentals, and turn them into real estate assets for private equity and other financial firms (Immergluck and Law Reference Immergluck and Law2014; Fields and Uffer Reference Fields and Uffer2016). In short, dilapidation is often an incentive for speculation and displacement (Smith Reference Smith1987) and online evidence of property markers alert speculators to potential prime locations.

Property markers can also prevent owners from making timely mortgage payments or paying their property taxes, which frequently results in foreclosure. Urban scholars have paid considerable attention to foreclosures—and their racially disparate geography—since the finance-driven housing bubble and 2008 crisis (see Immergluck Reference Immergluck2011). While foreclosures nearly always result in displacement (Hall, Crowder, and Spring Reference Hall, Crowder and Spring2015), until recently we knew much less about other negative credentials of property. As part of a renewed attention to the socio-legal dimensions of property (for example, Atuahene Reference Atuahene2014; Becher Reference Becher2014), recent studies have highlighted the similar implications of property tax delinquency and property deeds and liens—legal claims against property that city governments auction off to the highest bidding investor (see Kahrl Reference Kahrl2015; Henricks and Seamster Reference Henricks and Seamster2017). These instruments are a source of income for cash-strapped municipalities (Kahrl Reference Kahrl2015). But for property owners, they are negative credentials.

The ramifications of property markers are also racialized. Governments continue to overassess at the same time as the real estate industry undervalues properties in communities of color (Massey and Denton Reference Massey and Denton1993; Kahrl Reference Kahrl2016; Howell and Korver-Glen Reference Howell and Korver-Glenn2018). Black and Latinx homeowners not only have lower home values; they are also more cost-burdened by their homes and are much more likely to live in substandard housing (Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy 2016) and therefore more likely to end up in building court. These facts compound to place property owners of color in the eye of the storm when it comes to the negative effects of building court.

While criminal records can prevent people from renting or working (Dewar, Seymour, and Druță Reference Dewar and Seymour2015), property markers prevent owners from accessing equity that homeownership promises. Unlike criminal records, however, property markers occur in settings characterized by leniency. The fact that building court rarely results in fines or fees does not mean that property owners come away unscathed. Property owners suffer despite the leniency the court shows to them.

Savvy and experienced property owners are aware of the implications of property markers and try to avoid them. “No, no, we want to comply with all the violations,” remarked the owner of a two-flat rental in a neighborhood with a growing White and declining Latinx population that had seen a lot of development and upscaling in recent years. The court inspector and city attorney looked baffled. They were used to property owners fighting tooth and nail not to have to fix the building violations that brought them into building court. And, as I have demonstrated, building violations cases are commonly dismissed with substantial compliance, meaning minor violations are forgiven once severe issues are addressed. Yet this property owner—who was planning on selling the two-flat building he had rehabbed without obtaining the necessary permits—knew that any violations he did not address would remain on his building’s record. “I’m going to flip it!” he said with enthusiasm, “and you can’t usually get a mortgage with violations [on record] and [prospective buyers] don’t want to see anything on their title.” He knew about the ramifications of property markers and made strides to avoid them. In doing so, this property owner—who was already in the business of making money from property—further entrenched his position in the housing market relative to property owners with few resources.

Almost all the examples of courtroom leniency I observed involve small rental buildings—long a source of affordable housing and currently the only housing type in Chicago that is declining in numbers (Institute for Housing Studies 2020). In tight markets, building owners and developers flip these buildings, gutting the interiors to build desirable condos. In poorer areas where there is more affordable housing, these buildings are disproportionately left to deteriorate and eventually end up demolished (Institute for Housing Studies 2020). Thus, property markers not only harm the owners of small rental buildings, they also diminish the stock of affordable housing. A decrease of affordable rental options is most likely to affect the most marginalized tenants, who already deal with eviction records, criminal records, and racial discrimination (Desmond et al. Reference Davidson2013; Desmond and Shollenberger Reference Desmond and Shollenberger2015; Gold Reference Gold2016; Reosti Reference Reosti2021).

IS LENIENCY THE PROBLEM?

Although leniency is the norm in Chicago’s building court, sometimes courtroom actors make decisions that are directed at stringency. A comparison between how defendants fare after stringent decisions and what they face after leniency highlights that leniency is not the only problem. Rather, the issue lies in the broader legal and bureaucratic framework in which lenient (or stringent) decisions are made. I observed judges giving owners much less time to fix issues (on the recommendation of inspectors and city attorneys) in cases where property owners’ lack of progress was not purely attributable to a lack of resources—for example, when defendants were being deceitful or had failed to turn up for their court hearings. I watched a building court judge anger as an inspector revealed the owner of a small rental building in a high-poverty neighborhood had lied about fixing a boiler. The owner had previously claimed he had restored heating in his building, but a follow-up inspection revealed there was only heat in one of the units. One of the building’s tenants, a young male I assumed to be Black, nodded in agreement as the judge spoke to the owner—an elderly man who appeared White: “It’s disingenuous to claim you have done [the work] and ridiculous to say that you did not know you should fix both.” The judge ordered the owner to return to court in seven days with proof he had restored heating to the unit. Seven days stands in stark contrast to the months that judges frequently grant defendants to make progress. Yet both lenient and nonlenient rulings carry negative ramifications for defendants.

A lack of progress also prompted another court inspector to make a harsher decision than is the norm in building court. The owner of a two-unit frame house in a mixed-income and majority White neighborhood had failed to show up in court, and the inspector and attorney were filling out paperwork on a coffee-stained table in front of them. The property was in court because the porch was—according to the inspector’s notes—in “poor condition.” “Would you consider the porch dangerous?” the attorney asked. “No,” the inspector replied as he glanced at his own paperwork, seemingly to refresh his memory. The attorney’s pen had not touched the paper before the inspector changed his response. “Put ‘yes,’” he said. “Put the porch down as dangerous. [The owner] is not making progress, so let’s say dangerous to make it a shorter date.” Giving the owner a shorter date meant he had less time to make progress on the porch.

Inspectors have the power of postponement to help poorer building owners, but they can retract that help when defendants are no longer playing by their rules. “It leans so much it almost falls over!” a court inspector told the judge about a three-story building in an affluent White neighborhood. The property had been in court for years because of severe structural issues, and the owners had failed to turn up for their most recent two court dates. They were here today but had no progress to show. “You have run out of time,” the inspector curtly told the owner, a casually dressed man with gray hair who appeared to be Latinx. “You can plead your case with demo court,” he added as the owner opened his mouth to reply. Recommending the building for demolition comes with costs. Property owners are liable for the costs of demolition, which can run up to $20,000. Very often, an inspector told me, owners cannot afford the expense, “so what’ll happen is we pay the contractor up front [to demolish the building] and lien the property.” The building court inspector’s decision—his lack of leniency—would also end up costing the property owners. As these cases suggest, negative ramifications ensue without leniency.

Another kind of leniency is overlooking issues and not enforcing the building code. But this has negative consequences too. Not maintaining buildings can lead to dangerous conditions. Left unaddressed, a host of issues—from leaks, cracked bricks, to rot—worsen over time. As conditions worsen, resolving issues becomes a bigger and a more expensive job. Neglected properties also are demolished. An inspector explained, “we get demolition orders on buildings that aren’t that bad, but we just don’t have any other choice because nobody steps up to the plate. And as the court case progresses, the building just deteriorates.” What’s more, a minor issue overlooked might become a major issue in the years that follow. For example, even small holes and cracks in exterior walls can lead to severe structural damage if they are not repaired because water easily gets into holes and forces bricks and mortar to crumble and pull apart. Thus, overlooking even minor issues can become big problems for property owners in the long run and can mean that low-income renters are stuck with unsafe or unpleasant living conditions, which are associated with displacement and debt (Bartram Reference Bartram2023) and are major social determinants of health. Lead, mold, damp, pests, and energy insecurity are linked to asthma and other respiratory conditions, for example, and poor lighting, structural issues, and a lack of smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and other fire safety precautions can lead to injuries and fatalities (Grineski and Hernández Reference Grineski and Angelica Hernández2010; Swope and Hernández Reference Swope and Hernández2019).

In sum, leniency does not prevent defendants from some costly outcomes, nor does it cause them. Without funds to fix issues, any possible outcome (full enforcement, delayed enforcement, or nonenforcement) causes problems for low-income property owners in building court. To be sure, my data do not capture the counterfactual to leniency in all cases, and we thus cannot see whether alternatives would be preferable. Yet, my findings (related to leniency and considering the handful of stringent rulings I observed) lead to questions about the extent to which  housing conditions—or indeed any other social problem—should belong in courts at all. Recognizing calls to abolish courts (see Clair and Woog Reference Clair and Woog2022), the following section weighs up the extent to which building courts might achieve their goals with the influx of additional resources.

DICUSSION: IF NOT LENIENCY, THEN WHAT?

As this article has shown, courtroom outcomes can be harmful even when courtroom actors attempt leniency toward defendants who are unable to pay. But if leniency is not enough to help marginalized defendants, what is? The findings of this article show that helping property owners avoid property markers and the hassle of leniency requires solutions beyond the courtroom and legal profession. In part, this is because, as Feeley (Reference Feeley1979) argues, courts are not predictable settings in which we can assume courtroom actors share ideas of justice. Thus, safeguards to protect defendants from outsized effects of both punitive and lenient rulings are necessary.

The critical solution is providing property owners with funds to do necessary repairs. If the state paid to fix all building code violations for owners who lacked the means to pay, then it is plausible (if not likely) that all the burdens described in this article go away. Studies show that, after less than two years of ownership, disrepair makes homeownership unsustainable for many low-income homeowners (Acquaye Reference Acquaye2011; Van Zandt and Rohe Reference Van Zandt and Rohe2011). Additional research points to the racist historical and contemporary state-regulated and -sponsored practices that have caused this situation by both denying and extracting wealth in communities of color (Bartram Reference Bartram2023; Taylor Reference Taylor2019; Zaimi Reference Zaimi2021). And Garboden and Newman’s (Reference Garboden and Newman2012) study of small low-end rental housing across the United States finds that preserving small rental buildings as affordable for low-income renters is only feasible with government subsidies, in part because of the cost of building maintenance. The Whole Home Repairs Program in Pennsylvania is a model that other states could follow. In 2023, the state will begin offering eligible low-income property owners (including small-time landlords) grants of up to $50,000 for necessary repairs and weatherization. A program like this could be linked to building court, whereby a case brought against a small-time landlord or low-income property owner automatically triggered funds to cover the costs of repairs. Indeed, a robust home repair program could remove the need for this arm of housing court entirely, thus also achieving the goal of the court abolition movement.

In the meantime, considering that laws and regulations need to take explicit aim at redistribution to reduce social and economic inequality (Galanter Reference Galanter1974; Stryker Reference Stryker2007), technical or financial assistance for owners of rental buildings must also consider their tenants. This requires addressing the tension that code enforcement is directed at property owners but often affects tenants as well as the power imbalance between landlords and tenants. In my fieldwork, I heard landlords expressing concern about the expense of code violations, for example, but I did not hear them mention any concern over their ability to rent out units. This is suggestive of the power that landlords wield over tenants.

Code enforcement might have the potential to positively affect tenants by improving conditions, but it also has the potential to prompt increases in their rents if landlords make repairs (see Bartram Reference Bartram2019b). If landlords are reluctant to make repairs, tenants have the legal right (in almost all states) to exercise the warranty of habitability. In some states, tenants also have the right to withhold rent if their landlord fails to repair issues of which they are aware. But both legal protections regularly fail to protect tenants, in large part due to judges’ favorable disposition to landlords in eviction courts. Judges side with landlords if their tenants are not paying rent, irrespective of housing conditions (Super Reference Super2011; Summers Reference Summers2020). This means that tenants may be punished for exercising their right to withhold rent in buildings with issues.

Some building violations require the technical expertise and professional stamp of an architect. With this in mind, two Chicago architects recently outlined their vision for a public architect. Based on the premise that citizens have the right to a public defender if they cannot afford a lawyer, the pair envision free architectural guidance for property owners who need to fix violations that require the stamp of an architect but cannot afford the professional fees architects charge (Lui Reference Lui2020). Pro bono architects could be positioned in courtrooms or assigned to property owners before their initial court hearing to try to avoid multiple hearings, which, as it stands, are often the only opportunity for owners to find out what the court expects of them. Architecture firms could provide necessary equipment and incentivize employees doing this work, which would remove the potential burden on cash-strapped courts and municipalities. Removing this information-gathering aspect from the courtroom may also streamline the process and save time and city resources. However, it would be imperative that public architects were aligned with court inspectors, judges, and city attorneys to ensure property owners receive appropriate advice. Currently, the name of the game in building court is too often dismissal without ensuring issues get resolved. Schemes like these—directed at ensuring access to legal assistance and technical expertise—could also help to shift the focus of building court.

Although we need housing regulations and building codes to ensure safe and decent building standards, without rent control in place, landlords are unchecked in their ability to raise rents and pass the burden of ensuring safe housing—in the form of building codes—onto their tenants. Currently instituted rent control policies in places like New York City have their critics partly because rent stabilization is tied to apartment units rather than people (Keating Reference Keating1987; Davidson Reference Davidson2013). But a different manifestation of rent regulation could remove the opportunity for landlords to hike rents to cover repairs.Footnote ⁵ Perhaps tenant unions, along with government committees or community groups, could decide which issues landlords should fix and what repairs—if any—they might consent to pay more rent to cover. Models already exist, and there is a long history of tenant unions. Of course, tenants may not have the expertise to make decisions about some building codes such as regulations about fire ratings, construction materials, and the importance of preemptive building maintenance. Therefore, a workable solution may be for tenant unions to consult building inspectors and for municipal building departments to create a consultant position to institutionalize this practice. The courtroom could primarily serve as a place to connect people to these resources and services.