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

Abstract

Housing affordability and eviction are intertwined, yet much remains unknown about how policy responses to increase affordable housing affect the local dynamics of eviction. This article establishes a framework for understanding how supply-side housing subsidy programs in the United States may impact the incidence of eviction filing. We apply this novel framework in a descriptive analysis of 9 years of eviction filing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Overall, we find theoretical and practical support for the hypothesis that tenants in subsidized multifamily housing are less vulnerable to eviction than tenants in similar unsubsidized properties, but we find those protections vary between subsidy programs. Namely, we find public housing and project-based rental assistance properties are associated with decreases in the incidence of eviction filing, whereas the findings for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit properties are inconclusive. We cannot treat subsidized housing programs as a universal solution to eviction, but both theory and our analysis suggest it is an important tool for lowering eviction and eviction filing rates.

Eviction from public housing in the United States

“…Between 2010 and 2019, the Philadelphia Housing Authority annually filed between 9 and 13% of eviction cases in the city, despite managing roughly 5% of the rental stock ( Goldstein et al, 2019 ). While Preston and Reina (2021) found that residing in subsidized housing in Philadelphia was associated with lower risk of eviction filings when accounting for other building and neighborhood characteristics, public housing buildings had higher eviction filing risk compared with other types of subsidized properties. Data from the Atlanta metropolitan area showed that while eviction filing rates in senior, multi-family subsidized housing were lower than those in private market-rate apartments, there were no significant differences between the overall filing rate of subsidized housing and the private rental market ( Harrison et al, 2020 ).…”

“…In public housing, rent payments are set at roughly 30% of monthly income ( Schwartz & Wilson, 2008 ; Vale & Freemark, 2012 ). Despite this, a 20-year survey of a Hawaiian public housing board found that approximately three of every four eviction cases were filed for nonpayment ( Monsma & Lempert, 1992 ), and a recent study of eviction cases in Philadelphia demonstrated that most cases filed against tenants in public housing buildings included nonpayment of rent as a reason for filing ( Preston & Reina, 2021 ).…”

Evaluating Equity: A Method for Analyzing the Transit Accessibility of Affordable Housing Units

“…Two other programs considered in the following analysis are Multifamily and PH, which are both rental assistance programs administered by HUD that provide decent and safe rental housing for eligible low-income households ( 40 , 41 ). These are the three largest federally funded supply-side programs ( 42 ) with the overall purpose of making rent for low-income households more affordable. Geospatial datasets for these affordable housing programs are publicly available from the HUD-eGIS Storefront ( 43 ).…”

GIScience and neighborhood change: Toward an understanding of processes of change

“…Rather than stopping at maps illustrating the spatial concentration of vacant housing in one area of a city and concluding that it was a problem unique to that area, he produced relational maps depicting the location of property owners dispersed throughout the United States, thus demonstrating the broader spatial context through which the observed pattern is linked. Research on mapping and modeling spatial patterns of evictions is another example that strives to highlight underlying processes that help shape outcomes observed from more traditional census data sources (Medina, Byrne, Brewer, & Nicolosi, 2020; Nelson, Gromis, Kuai, & Lens, 2021; Preston & Reina, 2021).…”

“…Shelton's (in press) work on vacant housing is one such example. Rather than stopping at maps illustrating the spatial modeling spatial patterns of evictions is another example that strives to highlight underlying processes that help shape outcomes observed from more traditional census data sources (Medina, Byrne, Brewer, & Nicolosi, 2020;Nelson, Gromis, Kuai, & Lens, 2021;Preston & Reina, 2021).…”