The Americans most at risk of eviction are babies and toddlers, according to new data that paints the most comprehensive demographic picture yet of people living in rental households facing eviction nationwide.
Children under the age of 5 make up the largest age group in households that have received eviction notices, exposing them to instability during crucial years for their development.
Children are generally invisible in legal documents relating to evictions, which only name adults and leaseholders summoned to court. But by linking hundreds of thousands of eviction records to detailed census records, researchers from Princeton University, Rutgers University and the Census Bureau identified the other occupants of these homes.
The study reveals that all children, and particularly the youngest, are over-represented among those threatened with eviction. The risk is particularly high among black children and their mothers aged 20 to 35. In any given year, a quarter of black children under the age of 5 living in rental housing are part of a household subject to an eviction notice.
These trends partly reflect the poor quality of the U.S. housing market for low-income families. They also suggest that housing instability primarily hits a young population, ill-equipped to deal with it.
“When I started studying these questions, I imagined that the presence of children would protect families from evictions,” says Matthew Desmond, who directs the Princeton Eviction Lab and collaborated on the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “But it exposes families to the risk of eviction. »
It’s true, researchers, tenants and advocates confirm: Renters with children face additional financial burdens, limited housing options and, often, discrimination from landlords.
“It’s worse than I thought — it’s worse than many expected,” said Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson, an Ohio social epidemiologist who studies black mothers and caregivers facing eviction in Detroit. In her surveys and focus groups, women describe dismissive landlords and children struggling with depression following an unplanned move. “How do we recover from this? One woman told me, “Your kids never really get over eviction.” »
Unwanted risk
For homeowners, children often represent an unwanted risk. They are making noise. They draw on the walls. Tests must be done to detect the presence of lead. For parents, the birth of a child can be a financial shock, making them more likely to miss the month’s rent. Low-wage workers are also the least likely to receive paid parental leave and are more likely to have to leave their job to care for a baby.
The Fair Housing Act (Fair Housing Act) protects families with children from discrimination, but it doesn’t necessarily stop landlords, says Eva Rosen, an associate professor at Georgetown University who has interviewed hundreds of landlords. They won’t say they’re evicting a tenant because of the kids, she said. But when families delay paying rent, it “makes tenants vulnerable to landlords deciding who to go lenient with and who not.”
The National Apartment Association, which represents landlords large and small, says the biggest problem is the national shortage of affordable housing and insufficient help for low-income renters: “The answer is the same for a family or for an individual threatened with eviction,” assures Greg Brown, senior vice-president of government affairs for the group.
The new study sheds light on the children by matching names and addresses in eviction records to responses from the American Community Survey, a census questionnaire sent each year to a sample of American households. It also collects data on race, which is not included in court documents.
Researchers estimate that between 2007 and 2016, the years covered by the data, 2.9 million children were affected by an eviction notice in a single year.
Not every notice ends in an eviction, but cases leave lasting marks on credit reports that can impact a family’s ability to find stable housing for years. In addition, many families leave their homes without waiting for a court decision.
Fluctuations
Evictions have largely declined thanks to emergency policies put in place during the pandemic, including eviction moratoriums, emergency rental assistance and safety net expansion. But with those policies no longer in effect, researchers believe eviction numbers are now returning to or exceeding levels documented in the study, and the same groups continue to be overrepresented, says Nick Graetz, lead author of the study.
Regardless of income, households with children are more likely to receive an eviction notice than households without children. And the risk factor that children pose is particularly acute among black women renters: 28% of those with children face eviction, compared to 16% of those without children.
In recent years, researchers have demonstrated that adverse childhood experiences can have lifelong consequences for health, education and employment. Housing instability before age 5 can lead to delays in preschool readiness and is linked to attention and behavior problems as well as delays in cognitive abilities throughout the lifespan. schooling. As adolescents, these children are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety and have difficulty processing information.
Housing instability makes parents stressed, which can affect children’s well-being and expose children to other stressors, such as food insecurity and poor health coverage.
“With young children, the disruption takes a particularly heavy toll on parents, and when parents are stressed, so are children,” says Patrick Fowler of Washington University in St. Louis, who studies homelessness and its effects on children. When families are forced to move often, “children’s well-being, their cognitive development, their ability to make friends, to learn to be friends, to bond with significant adults takes a hit,” she said. he added.
Support that comes too late
Starting in kindergarten, public schools provide food, transportation, school nurses, and teacher connections. Additionally, federal law requires schools to identify homeless children and dedicate resources to them. But low-income children under 5 years old hardly benefit from this type of formal support.
Their families have limited housing choices, with the most affordable housing – studios, single room houses, etc. – not being large enough to accommodate the children comfortably. Sharing accommodation with friends or family members is more difficult when you have children. And when a family has to move while dragging an eviction file, the chances of finding new housing are reduced even further.
“We’re really pushing people into a different part of the rental market,” says Jennifer Erb-Downward, who analyzes poverty and housing policy at the University of Michigan. This market segment generally does not require credit guarantees. But living conditions and legal protections are worse, and rents are not much cheaper. Tenants may have month-to-month leases or informal agreements. Scams are commonplace.
We leave families trapped like this.
Jennifer Erb-Downward, University of Michigan
According to researchers and activists, if policymakers recognized that the problem of eviction largely affects children, the solutions envisioned would go beyond housing.
Families too young to be screened for housing instability at school could be referred for services at pediatricians’ offices. Cities could establish, as Seattle did, a moratorium on evictions of households with minors during the school year. Some states and cities seal eviction records, reducing the risk that families will be pushed toward predatory landlords. Research has also linked the expansion of the earned income tax credit to improved housing conditions for low-income mothers and children.
Children are resilient, reminds Mme Fowler, and stability later in childhood can erase some of the harmful effects of instability at a tender age. Inside homes, a stable family environment, parental warmth and improved maternal mental health protect children.
This article was originally published in the New York Times.