Lisa T. Alexander, a distinguished professor at Boston College Law School, is a venerated expert in U.S. housing law and policy. Her work centers on making housing markets more affordable, efficient, and equitable. Alexander’s extensive scholarship encompasses legal and extra-legal rights to property, housing, and urban space. One of her notable contributions is in the study of tiny houses, offering innovative insights to policymakers on housing options and property rights suitable for contemporary society.
Alexander’s policy positions are grounded in addressing systemic inequities in the housing market. She has highlighted the significant racial disparities in homeownership rates in the United States, particularly in states like Massachusetts. Despite record-high mortgage lending to Black and Latino home buyers in Boston, disparities persist, especially in wealthier communities and areas historically affected by redlining. Alexander advocates for legal strategies to remedy the effects of past discrimination and to further minority homeownership. This includes down payment assistance, homebuyer education for first-time homeowners impacted by racially restrictive covenants, and race-conscious marketing and buyer selection for homeownership.
In response to Massachusetts’s housing affordability crisis, Alexander supports the MBTA Communities Law, passed in 2021. This law mandates that cities and towns with MBTA access zone for more multifamily housing. Alexander views this legislation as a crucial step in increasing the supply of affordable multifamily housing and countering the legacy of exclusionary zoning and racial discrimination that has inflated housing costs across the state. The law aims to distribute the responsibility of creating affordable housing more equitably among municipalities.
Addressing the U.S. housing crisis and the spike in homelessness, Alexander has proposed the use of tiny homes—less than 400 square feet—as an alternative form of rapid, cost-effective, low-barrier shelter. She argues that tiny homes have a smaller environmental footprint and can be developed more quickly and inexpensively than other housing options. Alexander emphasizes the potential of tiny-home villages to foster community building, co-management, and self-determination.