HOUSING IMPACTS EVERYTHING: Ammunition from the Research Literature for Fighting Federal Cuts to Affordable Housing

The great authoritarian chaos continues. While nonprofit coalitions and public interest law firms have achieved some critical victories opposing illegal impoundments of federal funding for racial, economic, and housing justice efforts, the next battle will likely occur in a more conventional policymaking arena—the Congressional budget and appropriations process. This past Friday, The New York Times reported:

As the above quote suggests, the Trump Administration will almost certainly be proposing major budget cuts to housing programs. Moreover, if the Administration and Congress achieve such cuts and also make significant reductions to Medicaid or SNAP funding, the impact on the most vulnerable families would be even more devastating, and sure to result in spikes in eviction and homelessness around the country.

Given these imminent threats and the need to fight such proposals, advocates should be prepared to make a compelling case against any cuts to housing programs. Unfortunately, merely arguing that there should be a right to affordable, decent, and stable housing will be insufficient to convince many to maintain federal funding for these programs. Moreover, housers should be able to make the case for increased state, local, and philanthropic support for affordable housing, especially programs that serve the lowest-income families most at risk of homelessness, eviction, and other acute harms. While empirical evidence may not be the coin of the realm for Trump Administration decision-making, it can still be helpful for convincing at least some members of Congress as to the substantial benefits of affordable housing programs. It can also be useful for persuading actors in other levels of government and foundations to support such programs.

Over the last ten years or so, there has been a substantial growth in the scholarly research on the benefits of providing affordable, safe, and secure housing. These benefits include improved health, education, employment and earnings, financial health, and community stability, as well as decreased homelessness, crime, and violence. I summarize some of the most important recent research here across these different areas of impact.

HEALTH: Two recent reviews of the scholarly literature demonstrate the impacts of housing on health outcomes. A 2021 literature review focused on fourteen studies examining the effect of housing instability on household health. Housing instability[1] is significantly associated with preterm birth, low birthweight, neonatal intensive care admission, delivery complications, and hospital utilization.

A second review article, published in 2023, covered 59 peer-reviewed studies. The authors found that the literature indicates that housing stability is a key determinant of mental and physical health. Some papers in the review found that inferior quality housing was “consistently and strongly predictive” of children’s well-being. One paper found that subsidized rental units lowered state and local healthcare spending and reduced the risks of inadequate heating, nonrunning water, pests, and toxic chemicals. Another study found that subsidized housing lowers the risk of lead-based paint exposure. Critically, a study published in 2022 found that living in a municipality with higher rental housing costs was associated with higher odds of severe maternal morbidity except when there was a high availability of publicly supported affordable housing. The risk of severe maternal morbidity was 8% lower for each additional $1,000 in annual municipal-level housing subsidy per person in poverty.

Since Matthew Desmond’s 2016 book, Evicted, vividly exposed the problems of eviction, there has been a large and steady stream of peer-reviewed research demonstrating the links between housing instability in the form of both formal and informal eviction and health outcomes. Bruce Ramphal and their colleagues reviewed studies focusing on children’s health outcomes. Six studies examined associations between prenatal eviction and birth outcomes, and all of them found that eviction was associated with at least one adverse birth outcome. Five studies examined neuropsychological test scores, lead testing rates, and body mass index, and among these five, four reported an association between eviction and poor health outcomes.

In 2024, a wider-ranging review of the literature on evictions and health, this time not limited to outcomes on children and youth, found that many studies indicated associations between eviction and poor mental health outcomes. Some of these studies show that the impact of eviction on mental health may persist for years. Studies also found that eviction was associated with substance abuse. Other studies found that eviction and forced moves were associated with higher levels of premature death. The review also found that eviction is associated with increased use of acute medical care. A study of 1,300 Medicaid enrollees in New York City found that evicted individuals were more likely to lose their insurance. Another study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found significant increases in emergency department visits and mental health hospitalizations in the two years following receipt of an eviction filing.

There are at least three more specific studies that are particularly noteworthy. First, a 2021 study by Himmelstein and Desmond used a large administrative data set from the State of Georgia and found that experiencing an eviction during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of preterm birth and low birthweight. Hatch and Yun (2021) used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health to find that evictions have both short- (12 months) and medium-term (7-8 years) negative effects on multiple measures of health.

Finally, in a 2024 study, researchers constructed a novel dataset linking over 6 million renters in the 2000 Census to mortality through 2019 using the Census Bureau’s Numident file. They then linked these data to thirty-eight million eviction records between 2000 and 2016 and measured changes in rent burden between 2000 and 2008–2012 using the American Community Survey. They found that higher initial rent burdens, increases in rent burden, and evictions were all associated with increased mortality. They estimate that, compared to an initial rent burden of 30%, an initial rent burden of 70% is associated with 12% higher risk of mortality. A twenty percentage-point increase in rent burden is associated with 16% higher mortality through 2019, and an eviction filing is associated with a 19% increase in mortality and an eviction judgment was associated with a 40% increase. This study found that the association between rent burden and mortality was significant even when analyzing only tenants who rented the same unit over time.

HOMELESSNESS: Affordable, stable housing tends to lower the incidence of evictions, and evictions, especially when occurring among very low-income households, can lead to homelessness. Once homelessness occurs, it often becomes more difficult to find stable housing and employment, creating a vicious cycle. A Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia study found that housing instability – here manifest as an eviction – causes increases in homelessness and residential mobility. Eviction increases the probability of an individual staying in an emergency shelter by 3.4 percentage points, which is equivalent to an increase of more than 300% compared to those without an eviction. The impacts of eviction are not short-lived and last through two years after an eviction filing.

A study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston examined the relationship between the construction of Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) housing and county homelessness rates. The authors found that the development of LIHTC housing is associated with lower county-level homelessness rates, even after controlling for other factors.

A 2020 study estimated some of the public costs of eviction-related homelessness – including emergency shelter, inpatient medical care, emergency medical care, foster care, and juvenile delinquency, at over $9,000 per at-risk household, equivalent to over $11,000 in 2025 dollars. The authors noted, however, that this figure was not exhaustive and does not include the complete costs of being rent-burdened or living in unsafe or unstable housing, absent actual homelessness.

EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES: Researchers have found that higher school mobility rates, often the result of unstable or unaffordable housing, are linked to worsened school performance in children and youth. One study found that early elementary mobility is associated with a “downward trajectory” in reading scores, and that highly mobile eighth-grade students had math scores that were well-below statewide norms.

A 2021 study found that LIHTC housing has a positive effect on both educational outcomes and future earnings. Using administrative records, Elena Derby, an economist with the Joint Committee on Taxation, found that each additional year of LIHTC housing as a child was associated with an increase of 4.3% in the likelihood of attending college for four or more years. Each year of living in a LIHTC property was also associated with a 5.7% increase in future earnings.

CRIME AND VIOLENCE: A frequently-cited 2011 study in the Journal of Urban Economics found that each new unit of LIHTC housing in lower-income counties decreases the local violent crime rate on the order of 2%, a sizeable impact. The authors estimate that the monetizable savings due to this reduction in violent crime at $13,100 per unit. Bringing such savings from 2011 to 2026 dollars suggests a current savings of over $18,000 per unit.

In their broad review of the literature on eviction and health outcomes, researchers found that numerous studies have found that eviction is associated with the risk of exposure to, and the perpetration of, violence. In particular, two studies have found that eviction is associated with a higher incidence of interpersonal violence. Other studies have found that eviction is also associated with violence outside the home.

In a 2021 study, Lindsey Bullinger and Kelley Fong found that each additional eviction filing per 100 occupied units in a block group is associated with an increase of 0.064 reports of child maltreatment per 100 children. This amounts, on average, to about a 2% increase in reports of child abuse and neglect for each additional eviction filing per one hundred households.

STABILIZING HOUSING MARKETS IN WEAK-MARKET NEIGHBORHOODS: Contrary to some all-to-common misperceptions, subsidized affordable housing can have stabilizing impacts on communities. A 2019 study found that LIHTC developments located in lower-income neighborhoods tend to result in moderately higher home prices and lower crime rates. A 2022 study showed similar results but found moderately positive housing price effects even in higher-income neighborhoods.

EMPLOYMENT, INCOME, AND FINANCIAL HEALTH: Unstable housing is not just bad for one’s physical and mental health. It also results in lower incomes and worse financial health. A study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that an eviction filing “reduces earnings, durable consumption, and access to credit.” An eviction filing lowers earnings in the following year by over $300 per quarter, which amounts to about 8% of typical earnings. Moreover, the impact on earnings lasts into a second year and even grows to more than $600 per quarter. These researchers also found that a composite index of financial health falls significantly in both the first and second year after an eviction filing, a decline driven by increases in debt and lower credit scores.

While empirical evidence may not be the most important ingredient in any campaign to fight federal cuts to crucial affordable housing programs—especially these days—it can play a role, especially in Congress. It can also be crucial to garnering increased support from state, local and philanthropic funders for these programs.

[1] This study defined “instability” as being housing cost-burdened as well as living in poor-quality or overcrowded housing or experiencing frequent moves or homelessness.