Evictionmoratoriumhelped CT tenants fare better during pandemic than in other states, study finds
Jul. 25—The study, published in the academic journal Social Service Review, found that eviction moratoriums "helped relieve the sense of immediate crisis and the immense stress associated with rent challenges," giving tenants more time to catch up on payments.
"When I first learned that there was a moratorium on evictions and that they couldn't evict, that was like a humongous weight was like lifted from me," one Connecticut renter told the researchers. "I still had the weight of, you know, I have to take care of this, something needs to happen, but at least there was some sort of a safety net that, if I fell, I wouldn't hit the ground."
Researchers concluded that, as compared to Florida and Ohio, eviction protections in Connecticut helped tenants stay in their homes with minimal administrative burden.
"People are living so close to the edge that one small shortfall or some lost hours at work, as happened to many people during the pandemic, or an extra expense — that can that can change the trajectory of your life," Danya Keene, associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health and the study's lead author, said in an interview. "So a little pause can make a huge difference."
Proponents of the eviction moratorium said it helped renters through a crisis while lowering COVID-19 risk. Opponents said it created a strain on landlords, particularly small ones, who saw their income diminish.
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Keene said Connecticut's eviction moratorium, one of the strictest in the country, was successful alongside emergency rental assistance and other programs, which allowed tenants to keep up on rent even when they weren't required to pay. Research has also established that eviction moratoriums during the pandemic limited COVID-19 cases and deaths, among other benefits.
Despite the moratorium's generally helpful effects, the Eviction Lab paper found that Connecticut's policies were not perfect in protecting tenants. Some renters reported leaving their apartments even though they could not be evicted, either because they didn't know about the moratorium or because they didn't believe it could truly protect them. Some feared landlords could find loopholes that would allow them to be evicted anyway.
"Don't underestimate the mind of a landlord, if they've got money," one Connecticut renter said.
Connecticut introduced its eviction moratorium in the opening weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, as major economic disruptions left thousands of residents unable to keep up on rent. It remained in place for more than a year, until June 30, 2021, when Gov. Ned Lamont allowed it to lapse (while bolstering other forms of tenant protection).
At the federal level, Congress imposed an eviction moratorium in March 2020 that expired the same July. In 2021, the Biden administration implemented a new moratorium, which was struck down months later by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Eviction filings in Connecticut spiked after the end of the state and federal moratoriums, data shows, reaching an all-time high in 2022.
While Connecticut's eviction moratorium helped ease housing insecurity during a difficult time, Keene emphasized that the program certainly did not solve it altogether. She noted that Connecticut has taken some steps in recent years toward protecting tenants from eviction but said there is room to do more.
"We put all these resources into addressing housing so people wouldn't get COVID and then we took them away, and we're still in the housing crisis," Keene said. "One takeaway is, we could do it then, so why can't we do it now?"
