director of the federal housing finance agency. we will have coverage of several supreme court oral arguments monday through wednesday, live beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.org and c-span now video app. head over to c-span.org for scheduling. or to stream video live on demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with peter hepburn, a senior fellow at princeton university's eviction lab and professor of sociology and he is here to talk with us today about eviction filings and the covid 19 pandemic. good morning. guest: takes for having me on. host: tell us what the eviction lab is.

guest: the eviction lab is a research organization based at princeton university, founded by the author of the book "evicted," and it was established to try to get a sense -- to investigate the causes and consequences of eviction in america. his work in the book gave us a really in-depth portrait of the eviction process in milwaukee. work at the lab is to look beyond their and at what the prevalence of eviction is across the country, what's the factors are that are driving and what consequences it has on individuals and families. host: how long has the eviction lab been in existence in where do you get your funding from guest:? -- from? guest: the funding is from

philanthropic sources. host: you helped develop the lab here how did you start the lab in what is it used for? guest: we started the eviction tracking system in march of 2020 in the early weeks of the covid 19 pandemic. what the eviction lab had established to that point was a database, fiction filing, judgment from around the country between 2000 and 2016 and we had a good sense of where it was under normal circumstances but did not have the means of monitoring what was happening in real-time. with the numbers people -- number of people losing their jobs and a lot of people experience economic distress in the early weeks of the pandemic were likely to be -- and we wanted to get a sense whether

eviction filings were spiking. we developed a way collecting fiction filing data from court systems around the country to monitor what was happening in real time. at this point we collect those data from six states and 31 cities across the country, one in every four renter households in the u.s.. i think it has been a very useful way, knowing what's actually happening in the market. host: looking at your numbers for the eviction lab right now, we see there has been 670,725 evictions since mid-march 20 20 and more than 4000 evictions in the last week. are these evictions because of what happened during the pandemic, or do you think these

are normal numbers for evictions in the united states? guest: these are lower than what we would normally see. in 2016, under normal circumstances and unemployment rates below 5%, there was 3.7 million eviction cases filed in the year. in the 22 months since the covid 19 pandemic started, we have been able to track the 670,000 eviction filing on the sites we monitor. that is about 44% average for those. a lot fury eviction cases then we would normally see. host: why is it fewer? you would think there was more with fewer people working because of the pandemic, you would think there would be fewer people able to pay the rent. guest: i think the lower numbers we have seen over the course of

the last almost two years are a testament to the capacity of state intervention. looking at eviction moratoria established by the cares act and the cdc moratorium as well as moratoria established by 43 states and the district of columbia, those protections helped to keep people in their homes. there are also other interventions, things like stimulus payments, expanded unemployment insurance, the extended child tax credit, and emergency rental assistance that have allowed to prevent it fiction cases from being filed. host: that brings us to my next question -- the federal eviction moratorium ended last fall. how has that affected evictions in the united states and what has happened since that moratorium ended? guest: the supreme court struck

down the cdc's eviction moratorium last year. since that time, eviction filings have increased, but they still remain well below historical average and almost all of the sites track. overall, eviction filings across sites since the cdc order was struck down are still about 40% below historical average. host: while we continue our conversation, let me remind our viewers that they can't take part in this conversation. we will open up special lines, first of all, we want to hear from renters. if you are renting right now and you face eviction or if you are renting and worried about eviction, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8000. if you are a landlord, if you own property and thinking about evicting someone or you have had to evict someone in the past, we want to know what your process

is. your number will be (202) 748-8001. if you don't fit in either one of those categories but still want to join the conversation, we are opening up a line for everyone else. that line will be (202) 748-8002 . renters, (202) 748-8000. landlords, (202) 748-8001. everyone else, (202) 748-8002. you can always text, and we are always reading on twitter and facebook. peter, is the lower number of evictions because of the backup in the court system, or is it because of a lower number of filings? guest: it is possible -- there are jurisdictions where there

has been a backup, and that may be a disincentive to landlords who are considering if they know the case won't be heard quickly. but that is not true everywhere, certainly, and we are tracking those filings. there are a few jurisdictions where we started to see them increase above historical average, that is the exception rather than the law. host: we know about the federal moratorium going away last fall. are there many states or cities who still have moratoriums on evictions and can states and cities do anything about people being evicted? guest: at this point, there are very few state eviction moratoria still in place. i am hearing in new york city, new york has an eviction moratorium that will remain in effect for another week. new mexico has an eviction

moratorium in place, but aside from those two states, that is pretty much it. there are a number of jurisdictions that have restrictions on eviction filings so landlords have to go through the process of applying for emergency rental assistance before they can file with the courts. host: and the argument for keeping the federal eviction moratorium and the argument for keeping state and local moratoriums is that if the moratoriums go away, we will see a huge glut of evictions kicking people out of their apartments, just as winter has started. do we see those predictions come true? guest: we have not seen it as a large spike after the end of the cdc eviction moratorium, what is concerning is that we are getting to a point where a lot

of programs, especially in larger estates, are starting to run out of emergency funds. as those sources of funding dry out -- dry up, the maybe less incentive for tenants and renters to work through the issues. host: talk about the assistance that people are getting from state, local, and federal governments on staying there -- staying in their apartments. there still may be assistance going to renters and maybe even landlords to keep people from being evicted. guest: between the appropriations act of 2021 and the american rescue plan in march of last year, congress appropriated $46.5 billion in emergency rental, more than the annual budget of the housing and urban development.

there was reporting, especially through the first half of last year about how those funds were slow to be rolled out. they were this to be did by the state level, county level, city level, and tribal level across the country. they were trying to figure out how to make these operations work. as the year progressed, they got better, to the point that in november of last year, there were 655,000 households helped by programs and $2.9 billion was distributed. by the end of last year, the treasury estimates between $25 billion and $30 billion of that emergency rental assistance money has been spent or allocated to renters and landlords. host: lets let some of our viewers join in this conversation.

let's start with john, who is calling from wisconsin. john is a landlord. good morning. caller: good morning. inc. you for taking my call. -- thank you for taking my call. i have been a landlord for 30 years now. i feel that it is steered that landlords like to evict people, and that is the last thing you generally want to do. i think especially at the beginning, the state was slow at helping the owners of properties and expected you to cover all of the expenses without any help. guest: thank you for calling. i think you are right that there was actually a slow rollout of assistance to landlords, and in

some cases we have only seen that pickup in the last few months. i am not sure off of the top of my head whether waukesha is in the state program or if there is a county program for emergency rental assistance. i know the state program in wisconsin voluntarily reallocated money to the larger cities and counties within the state that have been much more effective at getting them on the -- the money out the door. host: let's talk to another john, this one from madison, alabama. this john is a renter. john, good morning. john, are you there? caller: i am here. host: go ahead, john. caller: i am incorporate living, and i think there is a form of eviction/extortion that my rent

has gone up 40% in five years. it seems like they have a form of extortion where i started out at 1285 four years ago and i met 1600 now and i know they will jacket up to 1775. how do you prevent -- jack it up to 1775. how you prevent this? how do they get away with that? guest: i think that is a serious issue, especially as we see rental markets heating up in parts of the country. there are jurisdictions that do limit the ability of landlords to raise rent as a form of rent control, that is relatively uncommon.

most parts of the country, the landlord decides what they want -- where they want to set rent and how you increase the year-to-year if you are on an annual rate. in new york, we are seeing a push for a bill to introduce some rent controls more generally, even in parts of rental markets not covered by traditional rent control. and that is a model of how that could be funded at the state level. host: let's talk to kathy from bloomington, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say that i have lived in a subsidy for 19 years, and i have seen these people that are getting all this help, and i mean big help, bigger help than anybody has ever gotten. they come in here with a cane

and act like they are almost dead. as soon they get in and getting their subsidy and everything and got their apartment, the parties, the drugs, the alcohol, the cigarettes, all of that goes on. if the government wants to save money, i think they need to check in to these avenues. it doesn't seem like management can put a handle on it. it is mandatory that there is no smoking in the building. they don't listen to no authority. something has to be done about this. it is getting bad. and for us older people, which i am 75 years old, what we are doing is getting out because we can't handle living situations like this. at one time it used to be wonderful, beautiful, but i don't know what has happened. if you are giving out money to

the newer ones coming in, you better check here i think most of them can work and you should check into that. one person is 18 years old who got in there. guest: i think it is important to draw a distinction between housing subsidies in the form of public housing and emergency rental assistance, which are very different and state programs. emergency rental assistance is available to people who have experienced economic hardship or employment loss as a result of the covid-19 pandemic and having difficulty paying rent currently. the vast majority of them will be paying that toward landlords on the private market. subsidized housing is entirely different. generally, that sort of housing either in public housing authorities is, a lot of

restrictions on tenants and their behavior. i am sorry that kathy has had this experience but i don't know that is generalized to the entire population. host: i wanted to play for you a clip of senator sherrod brown talking on the senate floor talking about the rental assistance the government has given out during the pandemic, and then i want you to react. here is senator sherrod brown of ohio. [video clip] sen. brown: they work with us on help for eviction and emergency rental assistant, cutting red tape and encouraging them to move past that to get help. it has delivered impressive results. within 520,000 renters received emergency rental assistance in october alone, meaning the families kept their homes and

kept their lights on and worked to get back on their feet. in total, more than 2.5 million payments have gone out to tenants and landlords. with the end of the year, we need the final push to get funding to renters and landlords who need it. host: congress has approved $47 billion in federal rental assistance last year. how much of that has been distributed, and where is it going? guest: as of the end of 2021, treasury expects that between $25 billion and $30 billion of those overall funds will either have been spent or obligated to landlords. there have been, these funds were distributed by programs at the state double, county level, city, and tribal level across the country. there are programs that have

done a better job of others and gotten at out the door quickly. in new york, they have either spent or obligated all of the funds they initially received. there is money that is being reallocated from other programs that have spent less funds and that may divide additional money to the states that have exhausted available rental assistance, but it remains to be seen how much overall that is going to be able to be moved around. host: for landlords who are watching, is there an easy place they can go to to access or apply for some of this when he, and for the renters watching, is there an easy place where they can go to apply for and access this money as allocated by congress? guest: it depends on where they live. i would recommend the national low income housing maintains a directory of all the programs

operational. if you are a renter or a landlord, you can look up the programs operating where you live, and that may mean that you are essentially applying to a county level program or a state-level program, and you need to figure out which one applies to you. once you get to that stage, the application process for each program is a little different. what the administration has been trying to do over the course of the last year is to streamline the process so those applications are as simple and straightforward for tenants and for landlords. host: let's go back to our phone lines. let's talk to jim who is calling from prairie farm, wisconsin. and jim is a landlord. jim, good morning. caller: hello? host: you are on, jim. go ahead. caller: them getting everything

they can get from the government and they haven't even tried to get a job. they were working before the pandemic. they are not even trying to find a job. they are just sitting there gathering money. host: go ahead and respond, peter. guest: it is hard to me to comment on a situation i don't know much about, but sounds like it must be difficult for jim. host: so the evictions that we are seeing happen around the united states, what will happen in courts with these eviction processes right now? guest: yeah, that's a good question. so what we are keeping track of on our end are eviction filings. this is when the cases are initially filed with courts.

after that court -- point, the courts have a hearing and judges will issue some judgment on these cases and not all of the cases that are filed will result in eviction judgments for a share of putting someone out of their home. usually it is about 40% of cases that are filed actually result in a judgment. that varies from place to place. we also know that in some places , cases are being filed and applications for emergency rental assistance are going and simultaneously. hopefully more of these cases get dismissed and don't result in families actually removed from their homes. the other thing to keep in mind is eviction filings have a lasting effect on peoples'

credit score and ability to find housing in the future. if you are a landlord and considering which tenet to take, you can screen there rental history and cfa have had any filings previously -- and see if they have any filings previously. that is a serious red flag, even if it never resulted in an eviction. as the numbers decrease, we see a growing number of people whose opportunities for stable housing moving forward end up being constrained. host: that serve answers the questions that one of our social media followers was about to ask, but i will ask and you can get more into that answer. the question is -- if people cannot be evicted because of the decree, doesn't that incentivize them to run up massive arrears and then seek new lodging once the moratorium expires? guest: it is hard to imagine

that being an attractive option for anyone. that is a meaningful dent that will follow you for years. you can be sued in small claims court for those arrears even after you are evicted and your wages could be garnished moving forward. and as i said, you are going to have a harder time finding housing in the future. that will seriously restrict your ability to find subsidized housing and even on the open market, your options will be much more limited. host: i want to read a paragraph or the associated press story on evictions, because it comes from the other side of the issue, the landlord side. among the concerns is that some landlords who got federal assistance are still evicting tenants. a survey of merely 120 attorneys nationwide from the national housing law project found 86% had seen cases like this. they also saw increasing

instances of landlords lying in court to evict tenants and illegally locking out tenants. are you seeing things like that as well? guest: so we don't have a good way of actually tracking that at this point. there are two separate issues here. the first one is landlords who have received emergency assistance and go on to evict tenants. in some cases, there are stipulations when landlords agree to receive rental assistance that say they cannot evict that tenant for some period of time, whether that be a couple months or up to a year. that is not true everywhere. there are programs where money can be deceived and a landlord can turn around and evict that tenant two months later, and that would be entirely legal and within their rights. we don't know how often that has happened. we hope that in the coming

months as treasury makes available data on who is actually receiving these payments, that we can start to match them up with the eviction filing records and start to build that linkage and see where these cases are happening and if they are happening at a high rate. the other issue is illegal evictions happening throughout the pandemic period. what we are able to monitor and track our eviction filings with the courts. these are cases that are preceding to -- through former -- formal -- are preceding through formal processes. so we have a relative -- it is hard to see those cases, hard to track how many cases there are like that through normal

consequences and there has not been a good way to do that to the pandemic. we do not know whether that is becoming more common or staying the same over the last 22 months. host: do we know what commonly happens to people once they are evicted from their apartment? is there an average of what normally happens to you once you are evicted? guest: one of the challenges is it is hard to follow people after they are evicted. we know that people generally experience that they are more likely to experience -- be in double housing, living with friends or relatives or to experience periods of homelessness. when you go back to the cdc eviction moratorium, that was explicitly a public health measure to reduce the spread of covid-19, the justification that

being in those doubled up housing situations, those are things that will increase the spread of a respiratory virus, and we wanted to do and she still should be doing everything to prevent that. we also know that people, after they are evicted, have reported a wide variety of medical issues, they are more likely -- those who are pregnant and going through the eviction process are more likely to give birth to preterm or underweight babies, more likely to report depression and suicidal ideation, and there is a clear, negative effect. host: is there a negative effect

to evictions for landlords? guest: there is absolutely a cost of replacing a tenant. right now, vacancy rates are in many places very low, but that doesn't necessarily translate into the neighborhoods where most evictions happen. there is a cost to having an apartment taken for a month or two that landlords have to weigh when they are considering whether to evict someone. host: let's talk to kenny, who is calling from byron, georgia. kenny, good morning. caller: good morning. i got a case on wednesday. and eviction and the tenant comes back and says i want to be put on a payment plan. i am thinking to myself, you are on a payment plan, a monthly plan. i don't think the judge can force me to accept less money per month because as the month

ticks on, she is just going to go further in the whole. so we are going to have a trial about it. so thank you. guest: there have been a number of jurisdictions around the country who have tried to institute eviction diversion programs, in some cases very successfully. payment plans can be a useful step for tenants who have fallen a few months behind and trying to build back to being back in the black. that will not be the case everywhere but it does work in a lot of cases. i hope that kenny and his tenant can work things out or if they can get emergency rental assistance. host: let's go to felicia, who is calling from virginia. caller: i live in charlottesville, virginia, and i want to talk about what happens to the tenants who are paying rent.

this past year, i struggled like you wouldn't believe. i had to tighten my belt and tighten my belt in live within my means. i lived in a duplex, and i watched the other tenant, it was obvious she wasn't working, but many people working down there put a strain on me because of the shared water bill, and then she had a new furniture delivered. we saw a car out there with new tags. this past year as i struggled, she was living large with bringing her family member into live with her. you most feel bad for the landlord because they couldn't do anything about it. and she hasn't been paying her rent and got kicked out, and left all kinds of debris in the yard and left a mess.

the landlord had to clean that up. last year my rent was raised. i am sure it will be raised again because the landlord will have to make that up somewhere. so the people who have been working hard and paying bills and tightening their belts and living within their budget, they are the ones who paid the price while others have been sitting, buying cars, getting furniture, moving relatives income not paying rent, and leaving everybody else with the mess. this system is broken. in charlottesville, the system is definitely broken. we have an absolute mess here in charlottesville. we haven't open door policy, let illegal's come in. we don't have housing for half of the people who live here. host: go ahead and respond, peter. guest: that sounds very

challenging. my heart goes out to you, felicia. i think those situations where tenants have moved in family are not always -- that can be a sign of hardship and hard times affecting a lot of people. the doubled up and more crowded situations are often a challenge , both for the people living in them and the people living nearby. i do hope that your landlord was able to access rental assistance funds to help make up any loss they suffered. virginia has one -- has been one of as a leader in making sure funds have been distributed. host: looking at your eviction lab numbers and especially the filings since arch of 2020, we have seen cities like new york -- since march of 20/20, we have cities like new york, las vegas, dallas, with a high number of

filings. are there certain areas, certain cities in the united states where we are seeing more evictions than other areas? guest: there has been a lot of variation across the country. that is something we have continued to see after the moratorium ended last summer. in new york city, where we continue to have a moratorium on the books, filings are extremely low. we are talking about 85% less than historical average right now in new york city. by contrast, places like columbus, ohio, milwaukee, wisconsin, houston, texas, these areas'filings are at historical average or above average. host: let's go to kevin in ocean city, maryland. caller: i am from new jersey

come in the moratorium has been lifted, but it really has not been lifted. we can file, but we cannot evict the tenants. so how is that moratorium being lifted? guest: there are number of states that had state-level moratoria in place that as those listed, there were a series of off ramps that occurred. there were restrictions on filings and hearings and over the next few months, each of those start to lift and the process will return to business as usual. host: let's talk to lisa, who is calling from laurel, maryland. this is a renter. lisa, good morning. caller: good morning.

i am in a high-end senior building and since covid, you know, all of the amenities and things we pay for have been kind of suspended, including like the bathrooms in the lobby, the laundry room, you can only have two people at a time. but i am hearing a lot from many of your callers today, it is almost like the welfare queen scenario. there are some of us who pay a lot of money to live where we live, regardless of our race and background. i just want folks there to know, nobody is living high on the hog on the government. if the government is giving you money, you are not doing too well. the government is not giving me

money because i work every day. when i listen sometimes to c-span, it seems like it is us against them, and everybody is struggling. thank you. guest: that is a great point. i think is worth emphasizing that when we talk about emergency rental assistance and the almost $47 billion made available, this is money that is ultimately going to landlords, not renters, and it will help to payoff debts, but it is not as though renters are walking away pocketing huge amounts of cash. host: i want to read to you a statement from the national association -- the national apartment association on the eviction moratorium and get you to respond to it. the long-term effects of the pandemic induced rental crisis extend beyond renters and

landlords. when rent goes unpaid, owners can't for property taxes, which fund everything from schools to firefighters, or routine maintenance. we need to see swift distribution of the rental assistance that congress has allocated. just over $10 billion of the $47 billion allocated for emergency assistance funds has reached renters and housing providers as of september 30, meaning countless households have not received the help they need. programs must be streamlined and meet the intentions of congress without adding unnecessary red tape to the application progress -- process for owners and renters. that came from the national apartment association. what should congress be doing now? guest: congress could very well consider appropriating further emergency rental assistance funds. i think there was concern earlier last year that perhaps

they had overspent on this program, the $47 billion was more than what was necessary. as the programs got better at moving money out, we are starting to see more and more of them run out and the level of need is really significant, and this money is now moving very quickly, being distributed and getting to landlords. it may well be that the $47 billion may end up not being sufficient, and there are, as the statement suggested, there are terms that are done longer-term. host: let's talk to richard who is calling from worktime heights, new york. richard is a landlord. good morning. caller: my question is, why does anyone believe that the landlord should absorb this cost of

tenants not paying their rent? the landlords have expenses and when tenants aren't paying, there is a risk of them losing their property, and nobody ever considers that, where they believe the tenant has the right to stay there and not pay rent and we are exhorting -- we are absorbing these costs? how is this fair? guest: i think it is important to emphasize that the vast majority of renters, by all data, the vast majority have continued to pay rent and the vast majority of landlords have continued to collect something approaching full rent over the entire course of the pandemic. if you look at rent collection levels in 2019, 2020, 2021, they look relatively similar across the board. have actually been tenants who have fallen significantly in arrears and landlords who have suffered because of that, but that is not the median case for

renters in this country. richard' is question was why do we expect landlords to absorb this loss? the answer is that we don't come and that is why congress appropriated this $47 billion in emergency rental assistance. that is money that is being paid out to landlords to reimburse them for their patience throughout the course of the first almost two years of this pandemic. host: let's talk to anthony who is calling from edison, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. it seems to me like a lot of things with government, it seems like things happen too little, too late. this could have been a win from the start -- a win-win from that start if it was paid directly to the landlord. the landlord gets money and the people don't get a chance to take the money and squander it. if they needed food or other

assistance, they could always get ebt or welfare or the food banks. at least you have a roof over your head. i am either -- neither a renter or landlord but i have been both and i know both sides of the coin and i also work for social services in the transportation vision. i know that in a state like new jersey, even before covid, we had 10,000 on this people on a given day. it seems like when people go to welfare, they will set them up in these seedy hotels that are flea bitten with bedbugs and all kinds of problems, and the state will pay all kinds of money to put these people in these hotels. i am proposing that there should be a new program. if you say low income housing, that always gets done a bad name. host: go ahead and respond before we run out of time. guest: vast majority of

emergency rental funds have been paid directly to landlords. there were exemptions that allow payments to be paid for renters if landlords refused to participate. the default was always to make payments directly to landlords. to the broader point about affordable housing and the lack of affordable housing, that is a serious and pervasive issue across the country. we see reports he or after year that the number of people who are rent burdened in this country, meaning that they spend more than 30% of their income on housing, we are talking about half of renters in the country who meet that threshold. for lower income households, the vast majority spent up to 50% of their income on rental housing. host: well, we would like to thank peter hepburn, an assistant professor of sociology at records university newark and a senior fellow at princeton university's eviction lab for being with us and talking us through the eviction rices and

covid-19. peter, thank you so much for your time. guest: thanks for having me on. host: coming up, more of your calls and comments as we move to our open form segment, where you get to talk about the most important political topic on your minds this morning. after that we will talk to conservative political commentator, michael knowles, from the daily wire. back. ♪ >> book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 9:00 p.m. eastern, seeking educational excellence, charles love discusses his book. and at 10:00 p.m. eastern on afterwards, law professors discuss their book, the original

meaning of the 14th amendment about the post-civil war change to the constitution, interviewed by a yale law professor. watch tv and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. >> c-span shop.org is c-span's online store browse our latest products, apparel, books, home to court, and assessor's. there is something for every -- and assessor rees. -- and assessories. there is something for every fan. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are bad for our open form segment, where you can call in and talk about what you