In 2021, a spokesperson for the Department of the Treasury was surprised to learn that Utah was using federal Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) money to pay landlords’ legal bills for evicting renters.
We describe and analyze the unprecedented eviction prevention housing policies enacted at the state level in response to COVID-19, where protections worked very differently from state to state.
Amy Rivo said she was given a notice to evict as soon as the moratorium ended in October. "They were essentially telling me I would be homeless a week before Christmas," she said.
Eviction is often seen as a city problem. This overlooks what’s going on outside of inner cities, leaving us blind to eviction patterns in suburban areas.
In Indianapolis, like many American cities, the long shadow of segregation continues to punish Black neighborhoods—to the disproportionate benefit of white landlords.
Nearly 60 percent of U.S. college students reported struggling to meet basic needs—including food and housing—during the past year, with Black and Latinx students both more likely to need aid and less likely to get it.
Over the last two years, the federal government intervened in the eviction crisis in a serious and unprecedented way. Our data show that that intervention has paid off.
