What are the economic consequences of evictions? For the first time, researchers have combined eviction court records with detailed longitudinal data on socio-economic outcomes such as employment, hospital visits, and stays at emergency homeless shelters. Using a quasi-experimental design based on random assignment to judges, they find that evictions increase homelessness, reduce tenants’ earnings, and impede their access to credit. The results also suggest that Black and female tenants are more likely to face negative housing and employment outcomes.

While the negative consequences of evictions have been explored through anthropological and sociological case studies—one notable example is Matthew Desmond’s work, Evicted—there has been little rigorous quantitative analysis that sheds light on tenants’ economic outcomes. In most eviction studies to date, it has been difficult to track tenant outcomes following an eviction because eviction court data and administrative data are not linked. It is also difficult to distinguish between the effects of an eviction and the effects of correlated crises such as unemployment or declining health that commonly precede an eviction.

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