A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research conducted by economists
We provide evidence of intensified discriminatory behavior by landlords in the rental housing market during the eviction moratorium established during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data collected from an experiment involving more than 25,000 landlord applications in the 50 largest U.S. cities in the spring and summer of 2020, our analysis shows that the implementation of an eviction moratorium significantly disadvantaged landlords. African Americans in the housing search process. A housing search model explains this finding, showing that discrimination is exacerbated when landlords cannot evict tenants for the duration of the eviction moratorium.
The authors are likely to revise the study before final publication. But their results should not be surprising. Eviction moratoriums make it difficult or impossible for landlords to evict tenants who don’t pay rent. This, in turn, leads property owners to be more cautious about renting to people who are disproportionately likely to default, such as the poor. If blacks are, on average, poorer than whites or more likely to default for other reasons, landlords will be more reluctant to rent to them at a time when they cannot resort to eviction to address the default. And studies in fact suggest that black tenants are, on average, poorer than white tenants, and more likely to carry rent debt.
The NBER finding is also consistent with previous studies showing that eviction moratoriums and other policies that make it harder to evict delinquent tenants increase costs and reduce housing availability. They are also likely to screen potential tenants more carefully, screening out those who appear unusually likely to default. Therefore, while eviction moratoriums and other similar policies benefit current tenants, they reduce the availability of housing for future ones, including current tenants who wish to move to a different location.
This does not necessarily prove that eviction moratoriums are unjustified. If, for example, the Covid-era moratorium had saved many lives, the resulting reduction in housing availability might have been worth it. But there is no concrete evidence that such a thing happened.
Likewise, eviction moratoriums implemented during economic downturns might still be worth it if they saved large numbers of people from poverty and homelessness. But, once again, the available evidence does not support this theory. When the Supreme Court abruptly ended the federal Covid eviction moratorium in August 2021 (ruling that the CDC lacked the authority to implement it), the eviction “tsunami” predicted by that policy’s advocates did not materialize.
There is much that can be done to increase the availability of housing for low-income and minority tenants. More importantly, it can reduce or eliminate exclusionary zoning, which has a long history of blocking housing construction in ways that disproportionately harm those very same groups.
If the government wants to provide low-income tenants with additional support during a recession or pandemic to prevent eviction, it can give them temporary rent subsidies. This can help tenants make ends meet without incentivizing landlords to exit the market, raise rents, or discriminate against low-income and minority tenants. But we should avoid policies – like eviction moratoriums – that tend to harm many of the very people they seek to help.
The legal and political issues here are distinct. I argued that the CDC’s federal eviction moratorium was beyond the agency’s power, and that eviction moratoriums also violate the Fifth Amendment’s Eviction Clause and similar provisions of state constitutions. But even those who disagree with me on these legal questions should consider whether eviction moratoriums are truly a good strategy for helping poor tenants.