Tag: Lucille Wood

Texas receives highest award in nation through development of innovative, progressive pilot.

Faculty, fellows, and students conduct study on informal housing settlements in Texas.

The work of Community Development Clinic Director Heather Way and Lucille Wood, a Research Fellow in the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law, was featured in a recent article in the Austin American-Statesman. The article examines the recent release of a report, coauthored by Way and Wood with Professor Peter Ward, C.B. Smith Sr. Centennial Chair in U.S.-Mexico Relations and Professor of Public Affairs and Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, examining the use and prevalence of “contracts for deed”—informal transactions for property that often have interest rates of as high as twenty percent—in Texas from 1989 to 2010.

The William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law and the UT Center for Disability Studies have completed the first phase of their work to assist the Texas state housing finance and Medicaid agencies in an application for federal funding available through the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Act of 2010. The Act resulted in significant changes to federal law governing housing for persons with disabilities, incentivizing states to develop new and innovative ways to support persons with disabilities in integrated environments. States will compete for a total of $85 million made available by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law is joining the LBJ School of Public Affairs to undertake a major study for the Texas Legislature on the use of contracts for deed in Texas colonias. The study will focus on title issues, variations of contracts for deed, and abuses during the sale of property in these communities. It will also examine wider issues of title irregularity as these emerge through informal land sales, subdivision, and intestate inheritance.