State Landlord–Tenant Policy and Eviction Rates in Majority-Minority Neighborhoods

ABSTRACT

This article assesses (a) the extent to which state landlord–tenant legislation may influence local evictions and (b) whether those laws may influence eviction-related outcomes within communities of color. This analysis uses an original data set combining 2016 state- and block group-level data from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, the American Community Survey, and landlord-tenant policy typologies, based on state statutes related to landlord-tenant law. Using multilevel mixed-effects models, we find that neighborhoods in states with more tenant-friendly policy environments were associated with lower eviction and filing rates compared with those in states with more landlord–friendly policies. However, compared with majority-White neighborhoods, eviction and filing rates in communities of color and majority-Black neighborhoods remained significantly higher—even in states with more tenant-friendly policies. In other words, tenant-friendly policies appear to support the reduction of eviction disparities but not the elimination of them. These findings suggest state housing policy environments matter for eviction-related outcomes broadly and for communities of color. We propose that eliminating racial disparities should include a focus on the implicitly racialized nature of housing and landlord–tenant policy, specifically.

KEYWORDS:

• policy
• state
• legislation
• rental housing
• racial equity
• neighborhood

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The 2009 Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act lapsed at the end of 2014.

2. A Cook’s d test did not suggest any significant influence of the 73 outliers, and the directions and statistical significance remained the same with and without those observations. However, we did not want those observations to influence the effect of those relationships, since the size of the slopes increased with those observations in the model.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Breanca Merritt

Breanca Merritt is a clinical assistant professor at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI, and the founding director of the Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy (CRISP) at the Indiana University Public Policy Institute. Her research assesses the role of public policies and programs in facilitating inequitable outcomes.

Morgan D. Farnworth

Morgan D. Farnworth is a doctoral student in public administration at the University of Kansas; she received her master of public affairs in 2018 from the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI, specializing in policy analysis and emergency management.