RAPID: Keeping Shelters in Place: Understanding Residential Landlord Decision-making During the COVID-19 Pandemic

租户在灾害面前面临特殊挑战，而这些挑战在当前的大流行病中被放大。2020年3月27日签署成为法律的“冠状病毒援助，救济和经济安全”（CARES）法案对联邦资助的多户出租物业的驱逐以及与不支付租金有关的费用和罚款进行了120天的暂停，试图至少部分缓解潜在的全国住房危机。此外，该法案通过禁止联邦担保抵押贷款的规定，为财产所有人提供了一些救济。该法案，沿着一系列类似的州法规，为租房者创造了临时住房稳定性，并为地方政府提供了一个时间窗口，这个窗口在许多司法管辖区已经结束。鉴于人们期望个人在家中隔离以保护社区健康和安全，因此有必要对地方住房政策进行这种范围的直接联邦干预，但这也是前所未有的，使地方政府在暂停和禁止计划开始结束时对如何进行几乎没有指导。租户和当地住房市场已经感受到压力，而COVID-19疫情对租赁住房稳定性的长期影响仍然未知。这项快速反应研究资助（RAPID）研究调查了美国住房系统的独特特征，特别是该系统中的房东决策，如何在COVID-19大流行期间导致租赁住房不稳定。在典型的自然灾害中，对住房的影响来自有形破坏，这对住房供应造成直接的负面冲击。这一流行病提供了一个独特的机会，可以审查影响需求而不是供应的灾害对住房的影响，并分析房东在这一背景下的决策作用。这项研究将在一个特别不确定的时期从房东那里收集易腐的、非常短暂的数据：新冠肺炎对公共健康和安全的威胁以及相应的政策干预不断演变;经济衰退正在加深;暂停驱逐和扩大失业救济即将结束。这些发现将有助于阐明房东的决策如何在当前的大流行期间塑造租赁住房的稳定性，同时进一步加深对房东在灾害相关住房稳定和恢复中的作用的学术理解。通过评估房东特征和决策与住房稳定性结果之间的关系，研究结果将有助于地方政府官员评估现有的灾害应对政策，并将提供重要的见解，为灾后制定新的创新租赁住房稳定性战略提供信息。本研究采用混合方法调查以下问题：在COVID-19大流行期间，哪些因素影响了住宅租赁业主的决策？这项研究将在美国三个中型城市进行：肯塔基州的列克星敦、明尼苏达州的明尼阿波利斯和俄亥俄州的克利夫兰。这些城市虽然规模相似，但住房存量、社会经济特征和政治取向各不相同。这项研究的重点是房东，住房市场的关键行为者，因此在住房稳定和灾后住房恢复，而不是租户，并在这样做的灾害和住房文献的一个重大差距。数据收集任务将包括（1）对通过当地住宅租赁登记处确定的房东和物业管理人员进行在线调查，以确定房东的特点以及他们根据这些特点作出的答复中的任何分歧;（2）跟进访谈部分愿意参与的业主及物业管理公司，以更深入地调查他们对新冠肺炎的看法-相关的挑战以及他们为应对这些挑战而做出的决定;以及（3）与当地规划师、政府官员、房东协会代表的访谈，和其他政策利益相关者收集他们对城市租赁住房问题的理解以及当地房东对这些问题的反应。研究团队预计，调查房东在COVID-19危机期间和之后所做的决定，将阐明这些决定如何在自然灾害期间和之后有助于出租房屋的稳定。此外，该分析将帮助灾害学者开发新的风险模型和社区弹性指标，这将有助于应对未来的经济冲击和灾害。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Tenants face particular challenges in the face of disasters, and those challenges have been amplified in the current pandemic. Signed into law on March 27, 2020, the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security” (CARES) Act placed a 120-day moratorium on evictions in federally financed multifamily rental properties as well as fees and penalties related to non-payment of rent in an attempt to at least partially ameliorate a potential national housing crisis. In addition, the Act provided some relief to property owners through forbearance provisions on federally-backed mortgages. The Act, along with a patchwork of similar state statutes, created temporary housing stability for renters and provided local governments with a window of time, a window that has ended in many jurisdictions. A direct federal intervention of this scope into local housing policies was necessary given the expectation that individuals isolate at home to protect community health and safety, but also unprecedented, leaving local governments with little direction regarding how to proceed as the moratorium and forbearance programs began to end. Renters and local housing markets are already feeling the strain, and the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rental housing stability remains unknown. This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) study investigates how the unique characteristics of the US housing system, and in particular landlord decision-making within that system, are contributing to rental housing instability during the COVID-19 pandemic. In typical natural disasters, the impact on housing stems from physical damage which creates an immediate negative shock to the housing supply. The pandemic provides a singular opportunity to examine the housing impacts of a disaster that affects demand rather than supply and to parse out the role of landlord decision-making within that context. This study will collect perishable highly ephemeral data from landlords during a particularly uncertain period: COVID-related threats to public health and safety and the corresponding policy interventions are constantly evolving; the economic recession is deepening; and eviction moratoria and expanded unemployment benefits are coming to an end. The findings will help illuminate how landlord decision-making is shaping rental housing stability during the current pandemic while furthering the scholarly understanding of the role of landlords in disaster-related housing stability and recovery more generally. By evaluating the relationship between landlord characteristics and decisions and housing stability outcomes, the study findings will assist local government officials to evaluate existing disaster policy responses and will provide important insights to inform the development new and innovative rental housing stability strategies in the aftermath of disasters. This study uses a mixed-methods approach to investigate the question: What factors are influencing the decision making of residential rental property owners during the COVID-19 pandemic? The research will take place in three mid-sized US cities: Lexington, KY; Minneapolis, MN; and Cleveland, OH. These cites, though similar in size, have varied housing stocks, socioeconomic characteristics, and political orientations. The study focuses on landlords, key players in the housing market and therefore in housing stability and post-disaster housing recovery, rather than tenants, and in doing so addresses a significant gap in the disaster and housing literature. Data collection tasks will include (1) an online survey of landlords and property managers identified through local residential rental registries to identify landlord characteristics and any divergence in their responses based on those characteristics; (2) follow up interviews with select willing landlords and property managers to investigate in greater depth their perceptions of COVID-related challenges and the decisions they are making in response to those challenges; and (3) interviews with local planners, public officials, landlord association representatives, and other policy stakeholders to collect their understanding of rental housing problems in the city and local landlord responses to those problems. The research team anticipates that investigating the decisions that landlords are making during and after the COVID-19 crisis will elucidate how those decisions contribute to rental housing stability during and after natural disasters. Further, the analysis will assist disaster scholars in developing new risk models and community resiliency indicators that will be useful in response to future economic shocks and disasters.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.