Does State Eviction Protection Policy Buffer the Effect of Housing Instability on Foster Care Entry? Evidence from IPV-Exposed Families

Background and Purpose: IPV-affected families face compounding risks for child welfare involvement: IPV exposure increases the likelihood of CPS contact and foster care placement, while housing instability—often driven by abusers' economic control and discriminatory housing practices—functions as both an independent risk factor and a consequence of IPV. Despite evidence that housing instability elevates maltreatment reports and foster care entries, and that IPV exposure predicts subsequent housing insecurity, most empirical work treats these as parallel rather than interacting determinants. Additionally, research examining whether state eviction protection policies condition this relationship remains limited. By integrating administrative child welfare data with state policy variation information, this study provides evidence of a cross-level association linking structural policy to placement risk. We examine (1) the association between housing instability and foster care entry among IPV-affected families and (2) whether state eviction protection policies moderate this association.

Methods: This study used linked administrative data from the 2022 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) for fiscal years 2022–2023, supplemented by a hand-coded state-level database of eviction protection policies for IPV survivors. The analytic sample comprised 53,159 children with documented IPV exposure across 16 states and the District of Columbia, of whom 8.53% entered foster care within 12 months of the maltreatment report. IPV exposure and housing instability were identified using standardized case-level indicators recorded in NCANDS investigations. State eviction protection policies were coded as a binary indicator reflecting the presence of legal protections for IPV survivors (e.g., lease termination rights, eviction defense provisions). Multilevel logistic regression models with a random intercept for state were estimated, adjusting for child age, sex, race/ethnicity, prior victimization, reporter type, and maltreatment type.

Results: Caregiver housing instability was associated with substantially higher odds of foster care entry (OR = 5.26, 95% CI [4.42, 6.24], p < .001). This association was significantly attenuated in states with eviction protection policies for IPV survivors (interaction OR = 0.47, 95% CI [0.38, 0.58], p < .001), representing a reduction in odds of more than 50%. This buffering effect was concentrated among families experiencing housing instability, suggesting a targeted protective effect for the most vulnerable households.

Conclusions and Implications: State eviction protection policies may buffer the association between housing instability and foster care entry among IPV-affected families. These findings suggest that upstream housing protections may reduce foster care entry risk, potentially by reducing economic precarity and supporting residential stability for survivors. By linking state policy context to child welfare outcomes, this study extends ecological and stress-buffering frameworks to the child welfare system. Policymakers should consider strengthening eviction protections for IPV survivors as a strategy to mitigate foster care entry risk, and child welfare practitioners should assess housing instability and connect IPV-affected families to available housing resources.