Rental Home Sweet Home: The Disparate Impact Solution for Renters Evicted from Residential Foreclosures

At the end of the last decade, a drastic spike in residential foreclosures brought unprecedented attention to the damage that mass foreclosure often brings to primarily low-income, minority–majority communities. Much of this attention—in both the media and in the legal arena—has been devoted to homeowners disadvantaged by predatory loans and other unsavory practices. However, a recent body of scholarship has shown that the brunt of mass foreclosure often falls on renters, who often have little or no procedural protection from speedy and unexpected eviction from their homes, regardless of lease status or tenure. This Note argues that the Supreme Court’s recent decision to affirm disparate impact liability under the Fair Housing Act provides a promising but unexplored legal hook to challenge these mass eviction practices and ensure meaningful protections for tenants in foreclosed properties.