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

面对灾难，租户面临着特殊的挑战，而这些挑战在当前的大流行中被放大了。《冠状病毒援助、救济和经济安全》（CARES）法案于2020年3月27日签署成为法律，对联邦资助的多户租赁房产的驱逐以及与不支付租金相关的费用和罚款暂停了120天，试图至少部分缓解潜在的全国住房危机。此外，该法案通过联邦政府支持的抵押贷款的延期条款，为业主提供了一些救济。该法案，连同一系列类似的州法规，为租房者创造了暂时的住房稳定性，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。考虑到人们希望在家中隔离以保护社区健康和安全，联邦政府对当地住房政策的直接干预是必要的，但这也是前所未有的，随着暂停和容忍计划开始结束，地方政府对如何继续进行几乎没有方向。租房者和当地住房市场已经感受到了压力，COVID-19大流行对租赁住房稳定性的长期影响仍不得而知。这项快速反应研究补助金（Rapid）研究调查了美国住房系统的独特特征，特别是该系统内的房东决策，是如何导致2019冠状病毒病大流行期间租赁住房不稳定的。在典型的自然灾害中，对住房的影响源于对住房供应的直接负面冲击。这次大流行提供了一个独特的机会，可以研究一场影响需求而不是供应的灾难对住房的影响，并分析房东决策在这一背景下的作用。本研究将在一个特别不确定的时期从房东那里收集易腐烂的高度短暂的数据：与covid相关的公共卫生和安全威胁以及相应的政策干预措施不断演变；经济衰退正在加剧；暂停驱逐和扩大失业救济也即将结束。这些发现将有助于阐明房东决策在当前大流行期间如何影响租赁住房的稳定性，同时进一步加深对房东在与灾害相关的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政策反应，并将为灾后开发新的创新租赁住房稳定策略提供重要见解。本研究采用混合方法探讨了以下问题：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等城市进行：肯塔基州的列克星敦；明尼阿波利斯、锰;以及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，他们是住房市场的关键参与者，因此也是住房稳定和灾后住房恢复的关键参与者，而不是租户，这样做解决了灾难和住房文献中的一个重大空白。数据收集任务将包括(1)对通过本地住宅租赁登记处确定的房东和物业经理进行在线调查，以确定房东的特征以及他们根据这些特征作出的反应的差异；(2)对选定的有意愿的房东和物业经理进行后续访谈，以更深入地调查他们对与新冠病毒相关的挑战的看法，以及他们为应对这些挑战而做出的决定；(3)与当地规划者、政府官员、房东协会代表和其他政策利益相关者进行访谈，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。研究小组预计，调查房东在COVID-19危机期间和之后做出的决定，将阐明这些决定如何在自然灾害期间和之后促进租赁住房的稳定。此外，该分析将有助于灾害学者制定新的风险模型和社区恢复力指标，这些指标将有助于应对未来的经济冲击和灾害。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

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.