The Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights (ILHPR) seeks to preserve and expand property rights for disadvantaged communities across the United States by producing research, devising legal reform and policy solutions, engaging in community outreach, training law students, and drawing on other complementary strategies. The Initiative encompasses a wide range of matters, including but not limited to rural land loss among socially and economically disadvantaged families; the past and present of the destabilization of urban neighborhoods due to redlining, urban renewal, and rising markets; the role of law and policy in ameliorating housing inequality and housing insecurity; and the issues rural and urban so-called heirs鈥� property owners face in retaining their properties and realizing the potential of their ownership. The communities the Initiative seeks to assist are disproportionately but not exclusively communities of color.听By helping communities of color preserve and expand their property rights, the Initiative seeks to help narrow the racial wealth gap. The initiative also strives to reform or create laws and policies to increase property and housing access, efficiency, and equity.
Professor Thomas W. Mitchell serves as the ILHPR Director.听Professor Lisa T. Alexander serves as the Faculty Director for Housing and Property Rights Programs (full list of the Initiative's staff below). The program encompasses four pillars of work:
The Initiative aims to develop a generation of real estate and community development attorneys who, individually and collectively, defend and enhance property rights through a wide range of legal work. The program has launched a Real Estate and Community Development Law Concentration to guide these students toward successful career paths that also help them use their legal skills in a variety of ways and contexts to benefit disadvantaged communities with property-related challenges. A Concentration capstone seminar explores legal topics often not addressed at all, or in any depth, in traditional law school classes and engages students with practicing attorneys with deep experience from a variety of practice areas. Students who are interested in the Concentration will fill out this planning .
The Initiative also has created rich experiential learning opportunities for law students through 黑料吃瓜网 Law's Externship Program as well as internships the Initiative has created and administers on its own. The Initiative has recruited a diverse set of organizations to provide law students with these new opportunities. The externships and internships offer students hands-on opportunities to do critically important legal work on a variety of legal issues and projects. For example, students can work on impact litigation and legislative matters; projects that involve developing and advocating for policy solutions to various land and housing matters; assignments that require research and data analysis on issues including fair housing, affordability, and closing racial gaps in housing; and matters involving the provision of estate planning legal services. To date, students have been placed at externships at Citizens' Housing & Planning Association (CHAPA) and the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and internships at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School (LSC).
The Initiative sponsors law school policy panels for students, the public, faculty, and others on topics of significant public concern including: 鈥淢BTA Communities Act: Legal Analysis for the Frontlines,鈥� 鈥淩ent Control and Rent Stabilization Bills: What Would They Do,鈥� and 鈥淏eyond Single-Family Housing: Collective Ownership Models and Opportunities.鈥� Outside of the law school, the Initiative鈥檚 Special Projects Manager, David Price, teaches an undergraduate class at Boston College called The State of Affordable Housing in the U.S., which is sponsored by the Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action within Boston College鈥檚 Carroll School of Management. In the coming years, the Initiative鈥檚 leadership team will consider developing new training opportunities for graduate and professional students from various other academic disciplines who are interested in working on land, housing, and community development matters.
The Initiative鈥檚 Legislative and Policy Lab works to advance concrete policy proposals and law reform solutions that address land, housing, and community development challenges, in particular those that disproportionately impact disadvantaged communities. The Initiative partners with local, state, regional, and national stakeholders to develop impactful legal reform proposals; supports coalitional advocacy; provides legal and policy analysis; and designs and disseminates policy proposals that work to strengthen property rights, intergenerational asset building, and housing and land security.听听听听听听
A centerpiece of the Lab鈥檚 activity is to address a wide range of issues in the heirs鈥� property field, which Professor Mitchell has played a major role in helping to build over the course of the past three decades and a field for which he is considered the preeminent national thought leader. The Lab鈥檚 activity in this space includes providing support to various stakeholders interested in the (UPHPA), a model state statute for which Professor Mitchell served as the principal drafter. The UPHPA has been adopted by 26 states and other jurisdictions 鈥� states with two-thirds of the U.S. population 鈥� with several other states considering it at this time, making it one of the most successful uniform acts the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) has promulgated in the past 30 years. Often in collaboration with other organizations, the Lab also works to advance other policy solutions, complementary to the UPHPA, to remedy economic vulnerability and property loss among heirs鈥� property owners.
In addition to its advocacy on heirs鈥� property issues, the Lab engages in a growing scope of work on other reforms to advance affordable and fair housing for homeowners and renters, prevent land loss among disadvantaged communities, and support intergenerational asset building. The Lab is in the process of scaling up its policy portfolio with the hires of its first Policy Director, Senior Policy Advisor, and Policy Associate, and the development of a formal policy agenda encompassing our work across a range of issues.听
The Initiative spurs theoretical and applied research about significant property issues affecting disadvantaged communities. The research team will produce policy-relevant research, drawing on a variety of research methods in its work. Some of the research work will be done in collaboration with other organizations that conduct research on land, housing, and community development issues.听
The Initiative鈥檚 research arm also sponsors conferences, workshops, and other gatherings. In addition to having participants who are academics and researchers, many of these gatherings are open to other constituencies, including those in government, nonprofit organizations, students, and the public. The Initiative hosts a signature annual conference focused on deepening understanding of heirs鈥� property and other critical property challenges affecting disadvantaged communities. The focus of the June 2025 conference will be Heirs鈥� Property and the Preservation of Affordable Housing. See the 鈥淓vents鈥� tab below for information on all the Initiative鈥檚 conferences. In addition, the Initiative sponsors a Property Law Schmooze, which is an invitation-only academic workshop for property scholars doing cutting edge work in law and in other disciplines. The October 2025 Schmooze is titled Interdisciplinary Property Law Schmooze.
The Initiative promotes the professional development of both attorneys and community practitioners by strengthening their expertise in estate planning, property-related matters, and community development on behalf of disadvantaged communities. The Initiative also closely engages with communities to learn from them in order to inform the work of the Initiative; to 鈥済round truth鈥� proposed legal reform and policy proposals the Initiative develops; and to be of service to them. That service includes sponsoring events such as designed to help community members better understand the laws and policies that impact the property challenges they face.听
One of the Initiative鈥檚 key efforts is the Homeownership Estate Planning Project aimed at sustaining long-term homeownership and facilitating an effective, successful transfer of family homes and family wealth to future generations. Research shows that increased access to estate planning among disadvantaged homeowners can help reduce the rate of homeownership loss experienced by these communities and thereby help close the racial wealth gap. The Massachusetts Affordable Homeownership Alliance (MAHA) partners with the Initiative by hosting classes on heirs鈥� property and estate planning reaching about 1,000 homeowners annually. The Initiative refers many of these class participants to another project partner, the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School (LSC), for legal services to create their own wills, simple trusts, and other forms of estate plans. Beginning in the summer of 2025, Boston College Law Students will be placed at the LSC as Summer Student Attorneys working with homeowner clients in need of estate plans. The Homeownership Estate Planning Project has generated interest from some key stakeholders in Massachusetts as well as some key nonprofit and governmental stakeholders nationwide.
The Initiative also collaborates with strategic partners to raise public awareness about the challenges to sustainable property ownership. At the convening during Super Bowl LIX week in New Orleans, Professor Mitchell served as a featured panelist, along with two NFL players who are among the leaders of the and the Executive Director of Louisiana Appleseed, highlighting the power of cross-sector collaboration to drive lasting, systemic changes.
听
2025听National听Conference:听Heirs' Property and the听Preservation of听Affordable听Housing
June 12 & 13, 2025 | Boston College
听
听
The Initiative's 2025 conference was听dedicated to addressing the critical issues at the intersection of housing and heirs鈥� property.听We highlighted various challenges of heirs鈥� property ownership and听delved into听the related work that is being done听to听develop sustainable policy frameworks for a more just听housing听future.听
听
听
Heirs' Property and the Racial Wealth Gap Conference
March 21 & 22, 2024 | 300 Hammond Pond Parkway - Boston College
Property in the form of homes and land represents the cornerstone of wealth for Black and brown communities. Too often, this ownership is unstable, second-class, so-called 'heirs property' ownership, which has exacerbated the racial wealth gap. This conference discussed a wide range of rural and urban heirs' property problems, including owners who lack clear title (tangled title), and addressed proposed solutions, including the widely enacted Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act.
Land Loss, Reparations & Housing Policy: The 2023 Conference
March 23: Harvard Law School | March 24: Boston College Law School
Black farm families lost at least $326 billion in generational wealth. Urban families lost stable housing. Learn about potential solutions. Sponsored by the Boston College Initiative on Land, Housing, and Property Rights, in partnership with Harvard Law School.
Keynote: Speaker: George C. Fatheree III, attorney in Bruce's Beach case听
听
听
Thomas W. Mitchell
Contact:听
thomas.w.mitchell@bc.edu听
617-552-1415
Thomas W. Mitchell holds the Robert F. Drinan, S.J. Endowed Chair at 黑料吃瓜网 Law and serves as the Director of the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights, which seeks to help disadvantaged people and communities acquire and secure important property rights. Prior to joining Boston College in 2022, he served as a tenured professor on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin Law School (2000-2016) and Texas A&M University School of Law (2016-2022). In 2017-2018, he served as interim Dean of Texas A&M School of Law.听
Professor Mitchell is a national expert on property issues facing disadvantaged families and communities, and has published leading scholarly works addressing these matters in academic journals, government publications, and publications for trade associations such as the American Bar Association. He has been interviewed by numerous media outlets including the听New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today,听NPR,听ProPublica, The Nation, Politico, Mother Jones, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,听the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, VICE, and many more.听
Lisa Alexander
Contact:听
lisa.t.alexander@bc.edu听
617-552-4375
Lisa Alexander's scholarship focuses on U.S. housing law and policy, and the law鈥檚 role in making housing markets more efficient and more equitable. She has conducted extensive research in legal and extra-legal rights to property, housing, and urban space, most recently including the study of tiny houses. Her scholarship and teaching illuminate the challenges of equitably allocating housing rights and opportunities, and provide insights to policymakers on how to reimagine housing options and property rights for today鈥檚 world. She teaches corporations, housing law and policy, and local government law at Boston College Law School.
Alexander received her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her J.D. from Columbia University. She was a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School from 2006 to 2017 before moving to Texas听A&M University School of Law. At Texas A&M, she held a joint appointment as a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning. She was also Co-Founder and Co-Director of Texas听A&M鈥檚 Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law, programming that she will continue at Boston College Law School.听
Michael Neal
Contact:听
michael.neal@bc.edu
Michael Neal leads the Initiative鈥檚 Research program, which will produce timely, high quality, and policy-relevant research that addresses land, housing, and property issues affecting disadvantaged communities.听
Michael also will continue to serve as a Senior Fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. His research intersects with racial equity, financial markets, and wealth building, focusing on homeownership. Michael previously served as Director of Economics in Fannie Mae鈥檚 Economic and Strategic Research Division and before that and Assistant Vice President in the Economics and Housing Policy Department at the National Association of Home Builders. He has also worked for Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve and the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress.
Michael has a bachelor鈥檚 degree in economics from Morehouse College and a master鈥檚 degree in public administration from the University of Pennsylvania. He also studied abroad in St. Catherine鈥檚 College at the University of Oxford and in the Graduate School at Princeton University.
Megan Haberle
Contact:听
megan.haberle@bc.edu
617-552-1470
Megan Haberle leads the Initiative鈥檚 Legal Reform and Policy Laboratory, which develops legal reform and policy proposals to address critical land and housing issues at the local, state, and federal level.
She previously served as Director of Community Development for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission in western Massachusetts and in senior-level policy and capacity-building roles in Washington, D.C. Her prior positions include that of Senior Director of Policy at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), Senior Policy Counsel on economic justice for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Deputy Director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC), where she led work on fair housing and environmental justice issues. Throughout her career, she has worked to advance civil rights and economic opportunity through policy reforms, in particular with regard to fair housing, affordable housing, and land use.
Ms. Haberle is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, and Swarthmore College, where she studied sociology. Prior to law school, she worked at the ACLU National Legal Department supporting its racial justice litigation, and as an English teacher in South Korea. She also practiced private litigation in New York and as Economic Opportunity Fellow and Associate Counsel for The Opportunity Agenda.
David Abromowitz
Contact:听
david.abromowitz@bc.edu
David Abromowitz is nationally known for his expertise on affordable听housing, economic development, and workforce development issues.听 A long time attorney in the law firm Goulston & Storrs, David has led a wide variety of transactions involving HUD-assisted housing, public housing revitalization, assisted living, community land trusts, and other multi-layered public/private projects. He is the lead author of the original model community land trust ground lease and co-led the project that produced the first Community Land Trust Legal Manual.听
David served six years as Chief Public Policy Officer at YouthBuild USA, leading the organization鈥檚 advocacy on a broad range of workforce, education and criminal justice issues.听 Prior to joining YouthBuild, David was a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for America Progress focusing on economic mobility issues.听 David is also a past chair and founding member of both the Lawyers鈥� Clearinghouse on Affordable Housing and Homelessness and of the American Bar Association鈥檚 Forum Committee on Affordable Housing and Community Development, a board member of the National Housing and Rehabilitation Association, and a member of America Forward鈥檚 Advisory Council.听 He has served on numerous transition teams and policy working groups for elected officials, including for then Governor-elect Deval Patrick (D-MA) and Boston Mayor Tom Menino, and served six years on the board of MassDevelopment, the Commonwealth鈥檚 economic development agency.听
A New Jersey native, David is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.听 He recently published his first novel,听The Foxtail Legacy.
Jill Apter
Contact:听
apterj@bc.edu
617-552-6067
Jill Apter is the Policy Associate for the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights at Boston College Law School. In this role, Jill will work on law and policy reforms to improve property rights, housing justice, and more equitable land use practices as part of the听Initiative's听Legal Reform听& Policy Laboratory.
Her legal background spans roles with the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Trust for Public Land, and the National Agricultural Law Center. Over a two-year term, her legal research at the National Agricultural Law Center culminated in a 50-state statutory survey and national webinar, aimed at helping policymakers and communities navigate tangled title issues and preserve intergenerational land ownership. She is a real property law professional driven by a passion for land justice, sustainable development, and the power of policy to create meaningful change.
She鈥檚 also held prior roles working with mission-driven organizations, helping them grow their impact through strategic planning, grant development, and operational leadership. Jill received her Juris Doctorate from Michigan State University College of Law (2025), Master of Nonprofit Management (2022), a graduate-level certification in Project Management (2022), and a Bachelor of Arts in International Business & Trade from Florida Atlantic University (2004).
Abigail Wronkowski
Contact:听
abigail.wronkowski@bc.edu
617-552-0203
Abigail Wronkowski is the Finance and Operations Manager for the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights at Boston College Law School. In this role, Abi will be advancing the Initiative's strategic priorities and managing the Initiative's budget and fiscal resources.
Prior to joining 黑料吃瓜网 Law, Abi was the Program Manager of the Housing Stability Counseling Program (HSCP) at NeighborWorks America. HSCP was a $100 million grant program funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to support housing counseling agencies providing services to households facing housing instability, such as eviction, default, foreclosure, loss of income or homelessness.
Abigail has held policy positions at Housing Partnership Network (HPN), Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and the City of San Diego. Her experience in public policy started in 2010 as Deputy Field Director for a San Diego City Council campaign and in 2011 as a Congressional intern (CA-51).听
Abigail is a graduate of San Diego State University (2014, MPA) and University of California San Diego (2010, BA).
David Price
Contact:听
priceda@bc.edu
617-552-2279
David Price is the听Special Projects Manager for the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights at Boston College Law School. In this role he manages these program components, which collectively help advance community development, estate planning, and property rights defense on behalf of disadvantaged communities:
Prior to joining 黑料吃瓜网 Law, David worked for 27 years helping build strong local development organizations in Boston, including most recently over thirteen years as the Executive Director of Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation in Boston鈥檚 Roxbury neighborhood, where he departed in 2022. Two transformative developments are Bartlett Station in Roxbury鈥檚 Nubian Square and The Loop at Mattapan Station. At Nuestra he co-founded Homes for Equity, a research and advocacy coalition dedicated to the adoption of race-conscious homeownership policies to counter redlining and other forms of institutional racism.听
Prior to joining Nuestra, David served as Deputy Director and General Counsel for Madison Park Development Corporation and as Executive Director for Tent City Corporation. David鈥檚 community organizing experience began as a volunteer with Mel King鈥檚 campaigns for Mayor of Boston in 1979 and 1983.
David is a graduate of Harvard College (1977) and Boston College Law School (1991).听 He clerked for Hon. Francis O鈥機onnor at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and was a real estate attorney at Goulston & Storrs in Boston prior to joining the community development field.
Lian Blake
Contact:听
lian.blake@bc.edu
617-552-1312
Lian Blake is the Estate Planning Fellow for the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights. She will be working on the Homeownership Estate Planning Project. The project will provide estate planning classes combined with legal assistance to create estate plans for disadvantaged homeowners.听
Lian is a graduate of Suffolk University Law School (2024) and earned her bachelor鈥檚 degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston (2018).听
Prior to working at the ILHPR, Lian served as the Chief Comment Editor of Suffolk University's Journal of Health and Biomedical Law. She also worked as a Summer Law Clerk at CannonMurrayLaw, an estate planning firm, and interned at Volunteer Lawyers Project in the Bankruptcy and Consumer units.听
Samantha Ghelli
Contact:听
ghelli@bc.edu
617-552-1415
Samantha Ghelli serves as the Administrative Assistant for the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights. She is an alumna of Louisiana State University (2022), where she studied International Law & Politics alongside听Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.听Prior to her work with Boston College Law听School, Samantha worked in industrial agriculture production. Please send all inquiries to the email or phone number listed to the left.听
The Initiative on Land, Housing, & Property Rights at Boston College Law School is grateful to the organizations whose financial support makes our work possible.听
Thanks to their generosity, the Initiative is able to host a wide range of programs - including our annual national conference, workshops, panel discussions, and other gatherings - as well as produce publications that contribute to a deeper understanding of critical property rights affecting disadvantaged communities.
We are producing research and policy proposals; training law students to have greater capacity to work on land and housing issues; and are doing community engagement work with our community partners. The comprehensive range of activities we have undertaken, which are made possible by our supporters, are designed to address significant land, housing, and community development challenges socially and economically disadvantaged communities face.
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of our supporters.
The Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights brings together scholars, students, policy makers, and thought leaders to engage on policy and research related to real estate, land use, community development, and other property issues. Students will find ample opportunities to get involved鈥攂uilding networks, advancing leadership skills, and shaping conversations on today鈥檚 most pressing real property issues.听
Real Estate and Community Development Concentration
The Concentration provides students with a deeper understanding of the relationship between real estate law and community development practice. Participating in the Real Estate and Community Development Concentration offers a number of benefits to students including:听
The Initiative created these opportunities at Massachusetts Association of Realtors, Citizens鈥� Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA), Lawyers for Civil Rights, National Consumer Law Center, and within the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights. Externships combine theory and practice by combining legal placements with a classroom component to help students develop qualities and skills they will need to become successful practitioners. View all open opportunities on .
In the summer, the Initiative hosts an intern to gain substantive legal experience鈥揷onducting factual and legal research, drafting memos, and assessing potential policy and law reform solutions in the areas of affordable housing, land loss and homeownership among disadvantaged communities, community development, and land use. Fall and Spring Law & Policy externship opportunities at the Initiative are available for course credit and compensation. View all open opportunities on .
Jessica Forte was a Law and Policy Intern for the Initiative on Land, Housing, & Property Rights at Boston College Law School. In this role, Jessica conducted legal and policy research on housing, land use, and property rights issues impacting disadvantaged communities. She is an alumna of Georgetown University (2022), where she studied Sociology alongside Psychology and Women and Gender Studies. Before attending Boston College Law School, Jessica worked as a Student Success Coach at Saint Martin de Porres High School, where she assisted at-risk senior students in conducting research and completing Capstone or senior project assignments to support timely graduation and academic success.听
Interested in Becoming a Law and Policy Intern? Check for open opportunities!
Questions regarding any of these opportunities? Reach out to Special Projects Manager, David Price. 听
听
