Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In Cook County, IL, more than 35,000 eviction cases appear before the circuit court every year, the majority involving tenants from the poorest areas in Chicago. Prior research suggests that eviction may not only be a symptom of poverty but may, in fact, cause or exacerbate poverty by contributing to circumstances that are adverse to economic mobility. Evicted tenants may have difficulty securing another lease or access to credit, which may force them to relocate to poorer neighborhoods (Desmond, 2012). This body of research has been highly influential in the policy debate over “housing first” anti-poverty programs, and whether housing instability should be addressed as a root cause of poverty rather than a correlate of other sources of disadvantage. Yet those facing eviction are likely to have recently faced negative economic shocks, such as unemployment or health issues, that may also create barriers to future social or economic mobility, which makes establishing the proposed causal relationship difficult.

This paper proposes the first quasi-experimental design for evaluating the causal impact of eviction on employment, social, and schooling outcomes using large-scale administrative data matched to public records of eviction court cases. Using over 500,000 eviction case histories, our research design leverages Cook County's random assignment of eviction court cases to judges, where some judges are more lenient than others. This provides a source of exogenous variation in eviction outcomes, allowing us to study the effect of eviction on a wide range of short- and long-run household outcomes associated with poverty.

Specifically, our paper addresses the following research questions: (1) Does eviction exacerbate poverty, by causing tenants to relocate to lower-income (or higher crime) neighborhoods? Does it cause diminished employment or earnings opportunities, or increased take-up of public assistance?; (2) Does eviction disrupt the schooling environment of children: does it lead to school switching, absenteeism, or behavioral problems? Does it affect academic achievement or cause children to fall further behind?; and (3) What are the pre-conditions that lead up to evictions?

With a research design that overcomes many challenges common to survey-based research, such as attrition, small sample size, and selective non-response, this paper is well positioned to contribute to the national debate on housing policy with new findings about how eviction affects individuals and families, including their future earnings, employment, neighborhood choice, and housing stability.