ABSTRACT
With more than 2.7 million households in the United States facing eviction each year, eviction has reached a crisis level. The consequences of eviction are considerable, both in terms of private and social cost. For tenants, eviction carries far-reaching negative effects on nearly all measures of wellbeing, including future health, earnings, and housing. The social cost-in the form of public expenditure-that occurs in the wake of an eviction is also significant. Thus, addressing the causes of eviction is important to mitigate this crisis and its damaging impacts. Eviction’s root causes are myriad, but one factor is the speed with which an eviction can be completed.
Once an eviction begins, the tenant is not only up against a counterparty but also an invisible clock. In most jurisdictions, evictions happen swiftly. Perhaps relatedly, most tenants are unrepresented in eviction proceedings. Thus, any manner of extending the time of the case, or receiving legal representation, could provide a lifeline for the tenant. We seek to understand how the elements of time and legal representation operate for tenants in terms of their eviction case outcomes.
We analyzed hundreds of thousands of eviction cases over a five-year period in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We learned that lengthening the time from eviction filing to case disposition improves a tenant’s chances of avoiding an eviction judgment. Likewise, legal representation relates to both a favorable outcome for tenants and a longer case. And both time and legal representation more acutely and positively impact tenant outcomes in eviction cases that occur in rural communities. It is our hope that these findings, and others proffered in our study, will lead to policy interventions to increase two potentially priceless commodities-time and representation-within an eviction proceeding.
Ryan, Christopher and Chambers Armstrong, Cassie, Buying Time (February 13, 2025), 32 Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy (forthcoming 2025).
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