Overview:
Post-pandemic moratorium eviction diversion and tenant protection programs are an opportunity for evaluation in many different contexts to assess how policy design and implementation can best support housing stability. Oregon’s eviction diversion program, the so-called ‘safe harbor’ for nonpayment eviction cases, was implemented in July 2021 to maintain some protections for tenants as the moratorium on nonpayment evictions ended. By following eviction cases from notice through adjudication, we can assess this policy and the challenges for preventing evictions and displacement during its early implementation. In the first 90 days of the policy, we find mixed results for tenants and suggest that policy could be better designed by understanding how information, communication, and power affect each stage of eviction proceedings.
This research was supported by the Housing Crisis Research Collaborative, which aims to address the longstanding inequities in access to safe, stable, and affordable rental housing that have been laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides policymakers at all levels of government with the data and analysis they need to design, implement, and evaluate more equitable and effective rental housing and community development responses to the pandemic and ongoing rental housing affordability crisis. For more info: www.housingcrisisresearch.org. The Housing Crisis Research Collaborative is supported by the Wells Fargo Foundation and JPMorgan Chase & Co., and managed by the Urban Institute. We are grateful to them for allowing the Collaborative to advance its goals.
Key findings:
- 27% of tenants with nonpayment eviction cases got the ‘safe harbor’ setover
- 25% of cases ended in a default judgement against a tenant for failure to appear at one of their court dates
- 32.7% of nonpayment cases were dismissed, though it's unclear whether the tenant remained housed even if the case was dismissed