“When We Do Evict Them, It’s a Last Resort”: Eviction Prevention in Social and Affordable Housing

ABSTRACT

Evictions are a common contributing factor to homelessness and are experienced overwhelmingly by vulnerable populations, including low-income households, single parents, and minority groups. At the same time, social and affordable housing providers serve increasingly vulnerable populations. Although all evictions are potentially problematic, those that occur in social and affordable housing can carry particularly severe consequences. Little research exists on evictions in social and affordable housing, and there is even less on eviction prevention practices in this sector. This project seeks to fill this research gap by exploring emerging eviction prevention practices in social and affordable housing in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Our findings show that evictions are a complicated process for both tenants and housing providers, and most commonly occur because of rent arrears. Housing providers try to prevent evictions, and toward this end, they have adopted four broad eviction prevention practices, centered on financial management, regular communication with tenants, provision of tenant supports, and community development. However, housing providers are often constrained in their ability to prevent evictions, in particular by human resource and financial limitations. These challenges lead to complex negotiations between housing providers’ social mandates to provide affordable housing to vulnerable households and their regulatory and operational environments.

KEYWORDS:

• eviction
• eviction prevention
• social and affordable housing
• vulnerability
• Canada

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by the Government of Canada’s Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy through Homeward Trust Edmonton’s Community-Based Research Program. Supplementary funding was provided by “Community Housing Canada: Partners in Resilience,” an academic–community partnership supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No. 1004-2019-0002). Members of the research team employed by Capital Region Housing work within the social and affordable housing sector, with a research and policy mandate.

Notes on contributors

Damian Collins

Damian Collins is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Alberta.

Esther de Vos

Esther de Vos is Director of Policy, Research and Education at Capital Region Housing.

Joshua Evans

Joshua Evans is Assistant Professor of Human Geography at the University of Alberta.

Meryn Severson Mason

Meryn Severson Mason is a Policy and Research Analyst at Capital Region Housing.

Jalene Anderson-Baron

Jalene Anderson-Baron was a Policy and Research Analyst at Capital Region Housing.

Victoria Cruickshank

Victoria Cruickshank completed a BA (Hons) in Human Geography at the University of Alberta.

Kenna McDowell

Kenna McDowell is an MA student in Human Geography at the University of Alberta.