Research

Research and evidence on eviction.

Policies with measured effects on eviction, written for legislators and the staff who draft the bills, and a searchable library of everything we can find on eviction, displacement, and housing precarity.

162 entries in the library · Library last updated April 2026

Policies that work Research library

From ERN.

What we have published, built, or evaluated ourselves.

Working paper · 2026

Keeping People in Their Homes: the impact of emergency rental assistance on evictions

A neighborhood-level evaluation of whether $46.6 billion in emergency rental assistance reduced eviction filings, across 700+ counties and 12,000+ census tracts in 22 states.

Washington eviction filings, 2016–2026

Over the past 36 months, 1 in 45 renter households faced an eviction filing, roughly 49% above the pre-pandemic normal. Seven of 39 counties exceed the state rate.

Toward a national eviction data collection strategy using natural language processing

How ERN mined 111,740 Washington court records buried in scanned PDFs and handwritten paper to expose the racial and gender disparities structured data could not see.

Every state's data →

Evidence brief for policymakers

Seven policies that reduce evictions.

Every intervention below has been evaluated in at least one U.S. jurisdiction and shown to reduce eviction filings, default judgments, or displacement. Summaries cite peer-reviewed studies and independent program evaluations, condensed for quick reference by legislative staff.

Request a briefing → See the full evidence base →

Right to counsel in eviction cases

Publicly funded legal representation for low-income tenants facing eviction. Typically phased in by income threshold and case type.

Evidence: In New York City's pilot ZIP codes (2017–2019), 84% of represented tenants remained housed against roughly 30% of unrepresented tenants, and citywide evictions fell by 41% after universal implementation. San Francisco reported a 67% reduction in defaults. Similar gains are documented in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
Enacted in: New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Washington State (2021, statewide), Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington D.C., Boulder, Kansas City, Louisville, Toledo, Detroit.
Sources: NYC Office of Civil Justice annual reports; Stout Risius Ross (2020), Cost-Benefit Analysis of Right to Counsel; Seron et al. (2001), Housing Policy Debate; National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel.

Pre-filing eviction diversion and mediation

Programs that require, or strongly incentivize, landlord-tenant mediation before a case can be filed in court. Often paired with rental assistance.

Evidence: Philadelphia's Eviction Diversion Program cut filings by roughly 36% relative to counterfactual and resolved about half of mediated cases without judgment. Michigan's statewide Eviction Diversion Program (2020–2021) distributed $1.1 billion in rental assistance and kept about 87% of participants housed.
Enacted in: Philadelphia (mandatory), Michigan, Texas (Harris County), New Mexico, Hawaii (emergency rules), Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
Sources: Reina, Aiken, et al. (2023), Philadelphia Eviction Diversion Program evaluation; The Pew Charitable Trusts; National Center for State Courts.

Emergency rental assistance

Direct payment of arrears and forward rent to prevent eviction. Most effective when delivered within 30 days, and when landlord participation is structurally encouraged.

Evidence: Federal ERA1 and ERA2 ($46.5 billion, 2021–2023) disbursed aid to about 10 million households and is credited by Treasury and the Urban Institute with preventing a post-moratorium eviction wave. State-level follow-ons in Washington, Oregon, and California show a 15% to 30% reduction in filings against matched controls.
Enacted in: Washington State Eviction Rental Assistance Program, California Housing is Key (archived), New York ERAP, Minnesota RentHelpMN.
Sources: U.S. Treasury ERA dashboard; Urban Institute (2022), ERA Implementation Study; NLIHC ERA tracker; ERN's HUD-ERA evaluation with the Housing Initiative at Penn (2026).

Just cause eviction protections

Require landlords to cite a specific, enumerated reason (nonpayment, lease violation, owner move-in) before terminating a tenancy. Reduces no-fault displacement and retaliation.

Evidence: Oregon's SB 608 (2019), the first statewide just-cause law, was associated with a decline in no-cause terminations. California's AB 1482 (2019) extended protections to roughly 9 million tenants. Quasi-experimental evidence from Seattle shows lower displacement rates for protected units.
Enacted in: California, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Washington D.C., Seattle, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, and dozens of California municipalities.
Sources: Pastor, Carter and Abood (2018), USC Dornsife; Oregon Housing and Community Services SB 608 report; UC Berkeley Urban Displacement Project.

Sealing and expungement of eviction records

Automatically seal or expunge eviction filings, especially dismissed or settled cases, so tenants are not screened out of future housing by the mere existence of a filing.

Evidence: Tenant-screening companies report even dismissed filings, generating a mark that follows a tenant for years. Minnesota's Statute 484.014 and Colorado's SB21-173 have reduced screening-based rejections, and California SB 1100 (2023) sealed dismissed filings statewide.
Enacted in: Minnesota, Colorado, California, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Illinois, Oregon, Washington. Under consideration in Arizona and Massachusetts.
Sources: Eviction Lab, The Scarlet E series; Sandefur (2014), Indiana Law Review; Kleysteuber (2007), Yale Law Journal; NLIHC eviction record sealing tracker.

Source-of-income discrimination protection

Prohibit landlords from refusing to rent to Section 8 voucher holders or other lawful-source recipients. Expands housing choice and reduces the concentration of voucher use in high-eviction neighborhoods.

Evidence: In the Urban Institute's paired-testing study (Cunningham et al., 2018), denial rates for voucher holders fall from 78% to 31% in protected jurisdictions, and voucher lease-up rates improve by 10 to 20 percentage points.
Enacted in: 22 states and D.C., including California, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Illinois, and Connecticut, plus more than 100 municipalities.
Sources: Cunningham et al. (2018), Urban Institute; NYU Furman Center; Poverty and Race Research Action Council source-of-income tracker; HUD PD&R report (2022).

Extended cure and notice periods

Lengthen statutory notice-to-quit, pay-or-quit, and cure periods, for example from 3 days to 14. Gives tenants time to access assistance, rectify the default, or find counsel.

Evidence: Washington's 2019 extension of the pay-or-quit period from 3 to 14 days, combined with standardized notice forms, was associated with a measurable decline in default judgments and a higher rate of tenant appearance in court. Similar findings in Oregon and Connecticut.
Enacted in: Washington (14-day pay-or-quit, 2019), Oregon (10-day), Connecticut, Nevada, Arizona. The federal CARES Act 30-day notice remains in place for covered properties.
Sources: Washington State Supreme Court Gender and Justice Commission; Seattle University Korematsu Center, Losing Home (2018); Oregon Law Center; ERN's Washington state pipeline.

Why these seven

These are the policies with direct, quantified evidence of reducing eviction filings, default judgments, or post-filing displacement, rather than policies that improve tenants' legal rights in the abstract. Complementary interventions such as rent stabilization, housing-first programs, and tenant opportunity-to-purchase acts also appear in the peer-reviewed literature, but their evidence on eviction specifically is more mixed or more indirect. They are covered in the library below. For a tailored briefing on any of the seven, contact ERN.

Research library

Everything we can find on eviction.

Peer-reviewed publications, reports, working papers, and datasets on eviction, displacement, and housing precarity, from researchers, courts, agencies, and advocacy organizations across the field. Searchable by state, type, and keyword. Know of work that belongs here? Send it to us.

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Know eviction work that is missing here?

The library is hand-maintained and it is incomplete by definition. If you have published research, run a court data project, or maintain a tracker we have not indexed, send it over and we will add it. If you need a policy briefing for a hearing or a bill, we write those too.

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