WSJ: Fears of a Significant National Rise in Evictions Have Not Materialized

WSJ: When the federal moratorium on evictions ended in August, many feared that hundreds of thousands of tenants would soon be out on the streets. More than six weeks later, that hasn’t happened.

Instead, a more modest uptick in evictions reflects how renter protections at the city and state levels still remain in parts of the country, housing attorneys and advocates said. Landlords, meanwhile, say the risk of an eviction epidemic was always overstated and that most building owners have been willing to work with cash-strapped tenants.

Both groups also think that federal rental assistance, slow to get off the ground earlier this year, is now helping prevent many new eviction filings.

Eviction filings in court—which are how landlords begin the process of removing tenants from their homes—were up 8.7% in September from August, according to the Eviction Lab, a research initiative at Princeton University that tracks filings in more than 30 cities. But the rate is still low on a historic basis, and, at 36,796 filings, it is roughly half the average September rate pre-pandemic.

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