Shelter From the Storm: State Eviction Moratoria, Implementation Context, and Eviction Filings During the First Two Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Forty-four state governments enacted eviction moratoria freezing or tempering the eviction process during the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to forestall evictions. Combining data on state and federal eviction policies with data on eviction filings at the census tract level in 27 municipal areas from very late December 2019 through March 2022, we estimated correlated random effects Poisson models to examine effects of the moratoria. We found that state eviction moratoria were associated with a 32% lower rate of filings for a given tract, with moratoria targeting earlier stages of the eviction process having a particularly pronounced effect. We further found that state and federal moratoria were synergistic: eviction filings were lowest when both a strong state moratorium and a federal moratorium were in effect. Finally, state moratoria tempered the relationships between risk factors such as community poverty or racial and ethnic demographic composition and eviction filings. Results suggest that state eviction moratoria, particularly those targeting earlier stages of the eviction process, were successful in meeting their primary goal of decreasing eviction risks during the pandemic.