Government Assistance Protects Low‐Income Families from Eviction

Abstract

A lack of affordable housing is a pressing issue for many low‐income American families and can lead to eviction from their homes. Housing assistance programs to address this problem include public housing and other assistance, including vouchers, through which a government agency offsets the cost of private market housing. This paper assesses whether the receipt of either category of assistance reduces the probability that a family will be evicted from their home in the subsequent six years. Because no randomized trial has assessed these effects, we use observational data and formalize the conditions under which a causal interpretation is warranted. Families living in public housing experience less eviction conditional on pre‐treatment variables. We argue that this evidence points toward a causal conclusion that assistance, particularly public housing, protects families from eviction.

The Concentrated Geography of Eviction

“…The concentration we observe could reflect the relative lack of public housing in Tucson (1.2 percent of housing units) and Fayetteville (1.5 percent) compared to Cleveland (3.8 percent). The lowestincome tenants in Tucson and Fayetteville may still be concentrated into a limited set of private buildings that will rent to them but be denied the rental assistance and institutional protection that public housing provides (Lundberg et al 2020). We identified the one hundred properties in each city that produced the most evictions over the course of a decade.…”

Spatial Concentration and Spillover: Eviction Dynamics in Neighborhoods of Los Angeles, California, 2005–2015

“…9-10) find that local housing cost burdens increased over time as more market-rate housing was built, while noting that subsidized housing construction is associated with lower rents and housing cost burdens, offsetting the economic burdens typically associated with eviction. 3 Lundberg, Gold, Donnelly, Brooks-Gunn, and McLanahan (2020) find that public housing tenants are less likely to be evicted than similar tenants in unsubsidized housing are; however, other forms of assistance (chiefly Housing Choice Vouchers) did not insulate tenants from eviction. We expect, therefore, that new construction will be positively associated with Ellis petitions, whereas increased availability of subsidized housing may have a protective effect on court-based filings, resulting in lower rates in these tracts.…”

Sheltered From Eviction? A Framework for Understanding the Relationship Between Subsidized Housing Programs and Eviction

“…In the first study, Lundberg, Gold, Donnelly, Brooks-Gunn, and McLanahan (2020) use a longitudinal survey to test whether residing in public housing or receiving housing assistance in other forms (e.g., Housing Choice Vouchers) reduces the probability a family faces eviction in the future. The authors find that residing in public housing decreases a family's probability of experiencing an eviction but not its probability of nonpayment of rent (Lundberg et al, 2020). Other forms of housing assistance do not significantly decrease a family's risk of facing eviction in their analysis.…”