Professor Quigley's Latest Book Addresses Eviction Crisis
09/17/2025
IU McKinney Professor Fran Quigley’s latest book, Lessons from Eviction Court: How We Fix Our Housing Crisis, has been published by Cornell University Press.
Professor Quigley has drawn on his experience and that of the students in the Housing, Health and Human Rights Clinic for the book. Through the clinic, he and IU McKinney students have been working to assist tenants facing eviction since 2020. The book contends that evictions and homelessness do not need to happen. In fact, the United States is the only nation of its kind where such a high number of families are evicted from their homes and have nowhere to turn for housing.
“Our U.S. history and other nations’ current examples show there are proven ways to ensure that all people are safely housed,” Quigley said. “When we start treating housing as a human right, which most Americans already believe it is, we can empty out both our eviction courts and our homeless shelters.”
Indiana’s eviction procedures have been criticized by Professor Quigley and other attorneys in a new report titled “Too Fast, Too Easy: How Indiana Courts are Fueling Our Eviction Crisis.” The report offers solutions such as giving tenants more time to prepare, requiring mediation, protecting tenants in unsafe housing, and keeping eviction proceedings private until their resolution.
IU McKinney’s Housing, Health, and Human Rights 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 Quigley is the author of several academic journal articles on social justice and human rights, multiple mass media articles and columns, and five books including this most recent work. Prior to his work at the law school, he served as the first Chief of Staff for Congresswoman Julia Carson and as the executive director of ACLU of Indiana. He edits the newsletter Housing is a Human Right.
