White House Holds Summit on Eviction Mitigation, Renter Assistance

It’s hard to say what the current eviction rates are, given the end of pandemic financial help to those that needed it—and frequently didn’t get it—a backlog from the moratorium, and the difficulty of getting court data. But in a typical year landlords file 3.6 million eviction cases, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.

The White House and Department of the Treasury hosted a recent summit on lasting eviction prevention reform, “including through the use of remaining American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds from ERA and State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF) assistance,” which, by definition, aren’t going to be lasting long.

Coming out of the pandemic-induced recession, by some measures, things seem better than usual, according to data quoted by the Biden administration. “Despite projections of an eviction “tsunami” following the end of the CDC eviction moratorium in August 2021, eviction filings nationally have remained 26% below historic averages in the 10 months since the end of the moratorium, based on an analysis of data collected by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.”

But while the administration claims credit from a variety of meetings, encouragement of fund use to provide legal help, and other suggestions sent to state and local governments, it doesn’t seem clear exactly how things improved or why. They suggest that a push for eviction diversion programs in 180 jurisdictions across 36 states had a big hand.

However, in a market with fast-rising rents and inflation eating away at consumers’ financial resources, especially lower-income people, the best hope to reduce evictions would seem to ensure that people can pay their rent. 

The National Multifamily Housing Council, which had been invited to the virtual event, wrote that the goal seemed to be for the White House “to discuss future actions in this space and highlight states and localities that they feel are ‘getting it right.’” 

The organization said that it was “unclear what specific efforts the White House will undertake” beyond encouraging state and local governments to use remaining ERAP funds and State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) to aid renters and housing providers facing problems.

While the Eviction Lab does note that in the six states and 31 cities it tracks, landlords had filed for 1,103,236 evictions since mid-March 2020, it’s unclear what percentage of rental housing in the country that includes. Also, during this period the pandemic eviction moratorium only ended last August when the Supreme Court ruled that the CDC did not have the authority to extend the action.

So, at this point, it’s difficult to tell what state things are in, how much trouble renters are facing with inflation but also a strong job market, and whether landlords are facing unusually high degrees of difficulty.