New Report Estimates COVID Eviction-Related Costs

The Innovation for Justice (I4J) Program at the University of Arizona and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) recently released a research report entitled, “Costs of Covid-19 Evictions.” It highlights some of the public costs of eviction-related homelessness that the United States will incur if adequate rental assistance and eviction protection is not provided.

According to the paper, a significant share of evicted renters is likely to need services, including shelter and emergency medical care, that require extensive financial resources. And families who lose their homes are at higher risk of encountering the child welfare and juvenile delinquency systems, which also require significant resources. These costs are in addition to the well-documented personal costs of eviction on individuals and the costs to landlords of unpaid rent.

The report builds upon I4J’s Cost of Eviction Calculator, an online tool that allows users to estimate select community costs of services associated with a rise in eviction-related homelessness. The estimates are drawn from existing research on rates of utilization and typical costs of social services for people experiencing homelessness. Depending on the number of households evicted, these public costs would range between $62 billion and $129 billion, not including the personal costs of eviction on individuals and the costs to landlords of unpaid rent.

The Innovation for Justice Cost of Eviction Calculator can be found here. The report can be found here.