Treesearch

Abstract——Over the course of several decades, many disadvantaged families who owned property under the tenancy-in- common form of ownership—property these families often referred to as heirs’ property—have had their property forcibly sold as a result of court-ordered partition sales. For several decades, repeated efforts to reform State partition laws produced little to no reform despite clear evidence that these laws unjustly harmed many families. This paper addresses the remarkable success of a model State statute named the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), which has been...

Those who plan iniquity and design evil on their beds . When morning dawns, they do it, for they have the power . They covet the fields, and seize them; houses, and they take them away . They defraud men of their homes and people of their lands . (The Israel Bible, Micah 2: 1–2)

After disasters like hurricanes and floods cause property damage, low-income homeowners are often unable to access government rebuilding grants and insurance funds because they lack clear title to inherited family homes. Since 2007, Louisiana Appleseed has been working on title issues involving inherited property in Louisiana and has learned many lessons. First, legislative advocacy and education of community members and policy makers are essential for removing roadblocks to rebuilding efforts. As decision makers craft legislation and policies, legislators need to understand the impact of...

Throughout the world, especially in areas of persistent poverty, many advocates believe that land ownership coupled with sustainable economic development are key to eliminating poverty, especially in rural areas but also indirectly in urban centers. An economically viable rural America helps reduce outmigration. In many cases, well- paying jobs and affordable housing in large cities are still relatively scarce for those without sufficient education or marketable skills. While land ownership is important for sustainable economic development, the impact and value of African-American land...

This essay includes findings from “Identifying Potential Heirs’ Properties in the Southeastern United States: A New GIS Methodology Utilizing Mass Appraisal Data,” a report the authors co-authored with Dr . Cassandra Johnson Gaither, U .S . Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station . That report was supported by the Forest Service as part of a cooperative agreement between the agency and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia (15-CA-11330144-023) .

Historically, relatively few African Americans in the Southeastern United States (the “South”) wrote wills; there were few African-American lawyers, and most White lawyers of the courthouse gang did not inspire trust. As a result, upon death, property in the form of homes and land was distributed as undivided shares among surviving kin. As generation followed generation, title to such property became ambiguous or “clouded,” sometimes with scores or even hundreds of claimants. This phenomenon, known as heirs’ property, is an overlooked contributing factor to persistent poverty among African...

Virtual reality (VR) environments are typically designed so users feel present in a single virtual world at a time, but this creates a problem for applications that require visual comparisons (e.g., forest scientists comparing multiple data-driven virtual forests). To address this, we present Worlds-in-Wedges, a 3D user interface and visualization technique that supports comparative immersive visualization by dividing the virtual space surrounding the user into volumetric wedges. There are three visual/interactive levels. The first, worlds-in-context, visualizes high-level relationships...

Geodiversity (i.e., the variation in Earth's abiotic processes and features) has strong effects on biodiversity patterns. However, major gaps remain in our under‐ standing of how relationships between biodiversity and geodiversity vary over space and time. Biodiversity data are globally sparse and concentrated in particular regions. In contrast, many forms of geodiversity can be measured continuously across the globe with satellite remote sensing. Satellite remote sensing directly measures envi‐ ronmental variables with grain sizes as small as tens of metres and can therefore elucidate...

Fuel continuity is the degree or extent of continuous or uninterrupted distribution of fuel particles in a fuel bed thus affecting a fire’s ability to sustain combustion and spread. This applies to ladder fuels as well as surface fuels (NWCG 2018).