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Professors Fran Quigley and Florence Wagman Roisman talked about Indiana’s eviction crisis with Indiana Lawyer. Both professors are widely regarded experts in the area of housing law.

Indiana was allotted about $400 million in federal funds to help renters who fell behind because of the COVID-19 pandemic but word of the availability of that money failed to make it down to many who could have benefitted from it. In the story, Professor Quigley described Indiana’s approach to eviction as the “cheap, easy, fast first step” rather than a “difficult last resort.” Professor Roisman discussed the need for judges to permit tenants to present a defense at the possession hearing instead of waiting until the damages hearing to get the renter’s side of the case. Landlords are required to provide properties that are decent, safe, and sanitary and if they do not, tenants can withhold rent until issues are resolved. Professor Roisman pointed to Rainbow Realty v. Carter, a decision from the Indiana Supreme Court in 2019. In that case, justices found the property owner was required to provide a dwelling in habitable condition and that Indiana code “expressly grants” a tenant a cause of action to enforce that obligation.

Professor Quigley is a 1987 graduate of IU McKinney, where he is a Clinical Professor of Law and teaches in the Health and Human Rights Clinic. Clinic students advocate for the rights of the poor, with a focus on individual and systemic barriers to accessing healthcare and the social determinants of health.

Professor Roisman is the William F.  Harvey Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Professor at IU McKinney. She teaches property, the civil rights movement (law and social change), housing discrimination and segregation, administrative law, real estate finance, housing & development law, comparative housing law, and homelessness and the law.