Preventing Evictions After Disasters: The Role of Landlord-Tenant Law

Disaster recovery is not a time of exception, it is a time when existing social, economic, and racial inequalities are reproduced and exacerbated. Housing institutions can amplify inequality during disaster recovery. We use quantitative methods to ask whether evictions increase during disaster recovery periods in four states. We stratify our case selection by the type of statutory protections for landlords and tenants in state law. In three cases that have pro-business or a mixture of pro-business and tenant protections, we find strong, significant increases in eviction rates in disaster-affected neighborhoods relative to neighborhoods in adjacent areas with no disaster declaration. By contrast, in the case that has primarily tenant protections, there is no statistically significant rise in evictions following the disaster. We conclude that tenant protections are not sufficient to prevent swift increases in evictions following disasters in states with a policy environment that is also characterized by landlord protections. We close with policy recommendations to prevent evictions after disasters, and suggestions for further research.