eviction

How Landlords of Small Rental Properties Decide Who Gets Housed and Who Gets Evicted

By Nathaniel Decker (UC Berkeley) | About half of US rental housing is held by small-scale “mom and pop” owners. These owners often have only one or two units and, historically, have rarely drawn the attention of scholars or policymakers. However recent work on eviction and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and eviction moratoriums on small-scale landlords have brought “mom and pop” owners into the headlines. In this article I answer a basic question: is there a difference in how “mom-and-pop” owners manage their properties relative to larger, more professional owners? Read More

May 26, 2022 // 0 Comments

Beyond Urban Displacement: Suburban Poverty and Eviction

By Peter Hepburn (Rutgers University-Newark), Devin Q. Rutan (Princeton University), and Matthew Desmond (Princeton University) | Eviction is often seen as a city problem. We tend to think of the eviction crisis as playing out in urban neighborhoods, both in high-poverty places where eviction is a constant threat and in gentrifying neighborhoods where long-term residents may be at growing risk of being forced out. This overlooks what's going on outside of inner cities, leaving us blind to eviction patterns in suburban areas. Read More

March 24, 2022 // 0 Comments

Building the Eviction Economy: Speculation, Precarity, and Eviction in Detroit

Eric Seymour and Joshua Akers | Evictions have recently gained national attention, in large part through the publication of Matthew Desmond's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Evicted. According to subsequent work from Desmond and colleagues at Princeton University's Eviction Lab, we now know that roughly 1 in 40 renter households were evicted between 2000 and 2016, with nearly one million renter households facing eviction each year. While eviction is certainly more likely for low-income renters, Desmond's work shows how families experiencing eviction fall even further into poverty as a result. After eviction, it becomes even more costly and difficult for already vulnerable families to find housing, hold jobs, and stay healthy. Read More

July 8, 2019 // 2 Comments