The Impact of Renter Education on Risk of Eviction

• In Event: Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) and Eviction Prevention

Abstract

The recent COVID pandemic ushered in new policies to prevent and stabilize tenants, such as Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) and temporary eviction moratoria, the effects of which are still being evaluated (e.g., Aiken, et al., 2022; Reina et al. 2021). However, pandemic-era programs have largely expired, and there is no indication that the federal government will create a permanent eviction prevention fund. Thus, local governments that wish to extend eviction-prevention work must rely on other programs and policies, which often have far fewer resources than the federal ERA. In this study, we examine the effect of rental education on eviction risk among applicants to an emergency rental assistance program. Our study generates rigorous evidence as to whether a government entity can lower the risk of eviction among low-income tenants by combining a low-cost intervention—rental education—with direct monetary rent assistance. This is an important research question because while non-payment of rent is most often cited as the cause of eviction, qualitative research on landlord-tenant relations paints a more complex picture, suggesting that tense or weak landlord-tenant relationships may increase the likelihood that a landlord pursues an eviction over other options (for instance, a payment plan) when a tenant faces a financial hardship (Pierce 2020; Rosen and Garboden 2022). Recent research finds that renter prevention workshops, focused on educating tenants about their legal rights, had a positive effect on San Diego tenants' understanding of their rights (Nations & Martínez-Valdivia, 2024), but this is the only other study, to our knowledge, that investigates the whether renter education is an effective policy tool for preventing eviction. 

Our paper describes the preliminary results of two randomized control trials (RCT) conducted in 2024 and 2025 that test the impact of in-person and online rental education program on the risk of eviction among rental assistance applicants. The first RCT, conducted in 2024, tested a 2.5 hour in-person eviction prevention workshop. However, the experiment, which enrolled 531 participants, suffered from low treatment take-up. Pre- and post-survey results suggested that emergency rental assistant applicants were interested in renter education, but struggled to find time to attend an in-person workshop. The second RCT tests a 30-minute, asynchronous, interactive renter education program that was developed in response to participant feedback from the first RCT. We link eviction court records to administrative emergency rental assistance data and participant survey responses to estimate eviction risk. We also use rich descriptive information from administrative data and participant surveys to gain a deeper understanding of participants' housing history, experience accessing and participating in the emergency rental assistance program, and housing experiences after applying for rental assistance. Finally, we compare treatment and control group outcomes for participants who ultimately received and did not receive rental assistance to examine whether there is a differential effect of rental education on the risk of eviction for applicants who received rental assistance versus applicants who did not receive assistance.

Authors

• Stephanie Casey Pierce, University of Tennessee (Knoxville)
  Presenting Author

• Matthew Freedman, University of California Irvine
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Mason Alexander
  Non-Presenting Co-Author