Sunday, July 30, 2023

Renters less likely to be kicked out where eviction filing fees are higher. Really!

Don't you love very naive and simplistic journalists? This is also another example of racializing everything! The phony disparate impact demagoguery was applied again!

Did you know that Princeton University has an Eviction Lab? Did you know that luminaries like "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation • .... • Chan Zuckerberg Initiative • Ford Foundation" are funding it?

This pseudoscience was then also accepted and published as a research article in an economic policy journal. Although, it obviously follows the propaganda playbook/narrative that landlords are villains and tenants are severely exploited angels.
 
These pseudo economists are talking about first round effects! This is highly misleading and false!

If e.g. the eviction fees were higher then perhaps these rentals would not even be offered or rental apartments would be converted into something else etc. etc.

"Places with higher fees for filing eviction cases have lower eviction rates — even when other factors are considered, new research from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University shows.

The research, published in the journal Housing Policy Debate in May, showed higher filing fees motivate landlords to work with tenants rather than turning to the legal process. "

From the abstract
"Eviction is a common and consequential event in the lives of tenants and is shaped by the legal environments in which it takes place. In this study, we show that eviction filing fees, or the amounts of money it costs landlords to begin formal evictions, have a large effect on eviction practices. Specifically, fees that are higher by $76 (one standard deviation) lead to lower eviction filing rates by 1.71 percentage points (0.26 standard deviations) and lower eviction judgment rates by 0.49 percentage points (0.19 standard deviation). Filing fees affect not only the rate but also the purpose of filing, as lower fees make landlords more likely to file serially against the same tenants as a form of rent collection. Each of these effects appears to be disproportionately large in majority-Black tracts, suggesting that low filing fees have disparate impacts on Black renters. These findings contribute to our understanding of the legal basis of housing insecurity and the racialization of eviction practices in the United States."

Renters less likely to be kicked out where eviction filing fees are higher – Center for Public Integrity 


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