IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/32463.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effects of Emergency Rental Assistance During the Pandemic: Evidence from Four Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Collinson
  • Anthony A. DeFusco
  • John Eric Humphries
  • Benjamin J. Keys
  • David C. Phillips
  • Vincent Reina
  • Patrick S. Turner
  • Winnie van Dijk

Abstract

Short-term rental assistance expanded to unprecedented scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate five programs distributing over $200 million through lottery, using administrative and survey data to assess effects on rent payment, housing stability, financial distress, and health. Assistance led to increases in rent payment and reduced concerns about eviction, with suggestive improvements in self-reported mental and physical health. In contrast with pre-pandemic emergency rental assistance, we find little effect on housing stability or financial distress. Explanations for these muted effects include: eviction moratoria weakening the link between rent and displacement, expanded safety net programs, and market softening favoring tenants.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Collinson & Anthony A. DeFusco & John Eric Humphries & Benjamin J. Keys & David C. Phillips & Vincent Reina & Patrick S. Turner & Winnie van Dijk, 2024. "The Effects of Emergency Rental Assistance During the Pandemic: Evidence from Four Cities," NBER Working Papers 32463, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32463
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w32463.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32463. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.