Exploring the Impact of Policy Spaces: Examining the Association of Political Factors on Tenant Protection Policies

Background & Purpose. In March of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic swiftly began to devastate the mental, physical, and economic health of the US population. Reports of at least 700,000 weekly unemployment claims combined with public health closures left many facing housing instability, including possible eviction. While federal policy was enacted to prevent immediate home loss, the policy response at the state level varied greatly. Now, post-pandemic, there is still little research examining why state response of tenant protection policy was so wide-ranging. This study works to addresses this knowledge gap and aims to answer the following research question: What political factors are associated with increased passage of tenant protection policy?

Methods. We used data collected by The Eviction Lab at Princeton University on emergency orders, declarations, and legislation related to tenant protection housing policy enacted by all 50 states and Washington, D.C. (n=51) between March 15, 2020, and June 30, 2021. The Lab used these data to develop the Covid-19 Housing Policy Scorecard, with scores ranging from 1 (low) to 5 (high). For our linear regression models, this score served as the dependent variable. Independent variables included number of dedicated housing committees in the state legislature (ranging from 0-3), racial composition of the state legislators for both the House and the Senate chambers (reported as count), and 2020 Presidential election results (a binary measure of whether the state elected the Democratic/Republican presidential candidate). Other covariates include racial composition (reported as a percentage), median rent burden (reported as a percentage), and number of renters (reported as a percentage) in each state. To examine the possible correlation among states already more likely to enact tenant protection policies, we ran a second model with only those states who voted for the 2020 Democratic candidate as the sample (n=26).

Results. Among independent and predictor variables, a significant association (p<.001) was found for having dedicated housing committees in a state legislature. With each additional housing committee, there is an associated 1.07 average increase in a state’s housing policy scorecard score. This was the only significant association. For the second model, using only Democratic states as the sample, there is a similar, but slightly weaker, significant positive association, with an average 0.89 score increase (p<.01) controlling for all other covariates. We also found that with each additional white Senator in Senate chambers, there is an associated .05 decrease in a state’s cumulative score (p<.05).

Conclusion and Implications. Our results provide evidence that having a well-fitting, physical venue for policymaking can provide advocates with increased opportunities to access and influence the democratic legislative process. These venues also allow for networking opportunities. Accounting for the potential positive effect of increasing available policy venues, such as dedicated housing committees in state legislatures, is an important step for social workers to take when advocating for adopting policy that supports tenant protections and can encourage coalition building in the policy space. Further, increasing diversity within political bodies create greater expansion of tenant protections for those who may need them the most.