The Impact of Renter Education on Risk of Eviction for Tenants with and without Rental Assistance

Last registered on November 21, 2025

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

The Impact of Renter Education on Risk of Eviction for Tenants with and without Rental Assistance

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0011572

Initial registration date

July 05, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

July 10, 2023, 9:43 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

November 21, 2025, 2:57 PM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Name

Stephanie Pierce

Affiliation

University of Tennessee - Knoxville

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Matthew Freedman

PI Affiliation

University of California - Irvine

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2024-06-01

End date

2026-06-30

Keywords

Education, Governance, Other

Additional Keywords

public policy, housing

JEL code(s)

R28, I38

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

A growing body of research finds that residential evictions are associated with negative social, economic, and health consequences for households and communities (Slee and Desmond 2021; Leifheit et al. 2021; Hatch and Yun 2021; Ghimire et al. 2021; Desmond
2012; Pierce 2020). The recent COVID pandemic ushered in new policies to prevent and stabilize tenants, such as Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) and temporary eviction moratoria, the effects of which are still being evaluated (e.g., Reina et al. 2021) . However,
pandemic-era programs are funded by emergency allocations set to expire at the end of 2022 or early 2023. Thus, local governments that wish to extend eviction-prevention work, must rely on other programs and policies. The proposed study seeks to evaluate the effect a county-sponsored non-profit renter education program on the risk of eviction. Using an experimental design, we aim to evaluate the impact of renter education on applicants to a rental assistance program and test the differential effect of renter education on rental assistance recipients and
non-recipients.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Freedman, Matthew and Stephanie Pierce. 2025. "The Impact of Renter Education on Risk of Eviction for Tenants with and without Rental Assistance." AEA RCT Registry. November 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11572-2.0

Sponsors & Partners

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention is a renter education workshop, which is a 30 minute online workshop during which participants will receive detailed information about their rights and responsibilities as tenants. They will learn how to resolve conflicts with landlords, how to navigate the eviction process, and where to find community resources to support housing stability. The Renter Education program focuses primarily on
myths pertaining to renting. The workshop will be held at community centers and libraries in neighborhoods throughout Columbus where high numbers of emergency rental assistance applicants reside. Community Mediation Services, a local nonprofit that has been offering renter education workshops for over a decade, will host the workshops.

Intervention Start Date

2024-06-01

Intervention End Date

2026-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

We are interested in measuring the extent to which renter education reduces evictions. We will use local court records to capture information on judicial evictions that take place within six-months of participants' enrollment in the study. We operationalize "eviction" as eviction filings, judgments, writs of restitution, and set-outs. We will use survey data to capture self-reported information on informal (non-judicial) evictions and other residential moves that occur within six months of study enrollment.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Because our participants are drawn from applicants from a rental assistance program, some of our participants will receive rental assistance during the study period and some will not receive rental assistance. Thus, we will also examine the secondary effect of receiving rental education with and without rental assistance. The final outcome will still be eviction, operationalized as previously described, but we will include receipt of rental assistance as a moderating variable.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The experimental research design draws from online applicants to the Franklin County rental assistance program known as PRC. When applicants finish their online application, they’ll see a screen inviting them to participate in the study. Applicants who affirmatively consent to participate will then be directed to complete an online survey that solicits information about participants’ housing history, housing quality, and knowledge of housing rights. The survey should take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

After completing the survey, participants will be randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group; 80 percent of participants will be assigned to the treatment group and the rest to the control group. Treatment group participants will then be invited to participate in a renter education program to be held within one to four weeks. Control group participants will receive a list of local and online renter education
resources but will not be invited to participate in the renter education program.

The renter education workshop—the primary treatment—is a 30-minute online workshop at which participants will receive detailed information about their rights and responsibilities as tenants. They will learn how to resolve conflicts with landlords, how to navigate the eviction process, and where to find community resources to support housing stability. The Renter Education program focuses primarily on
myths pertaining to renting.

All treatment and control group participants (excluding any who may have opted out of the study at the time of treatment) will receive an email and text invitation to participate in a second online survey six months after their initial PRC application. The second survey will request information about participants’ current living situation to determine whether any change in residence has occurred since the initial PRC application. This experimental research design allows for the evaluation of the main effect of receiving renter education and the
secondary effect of receiving renter education with and without rental assistance. An important element of this design is that study participation will be offered to all PRC applicants prior before applicants know whether their application for assistance has been approved or denied. Thus, participants will fall into the following four categories: no intervention, PRC Only, renter assistance only, and both PRC and rental assistance. Importantly, while the assignment to the renter education treatment is random, receipt of PRC is not random and is determined by the PRC program. Thus, while we can compare the outcomes of treatment group participants to control group participants and determine whether there appears to be is an added benefit of receiving rental assistance with PRC versus receiving renter education alone, the lack of randomization into the PRC program prevents us from identifying a causal effect of PRC on research outcomes.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Participants will be randomized into treatment and control groups via the Qualtrics survey system upon completion of their first survey. Of participants who complete the survey, 75% will be randomized to the treatment group and 25% will be randomized to the control group.

Randomization Unit

N/A

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

N/A

Sample size: planned number of observations

We estimate enrolling 1,602 (up to a maximum of 2,000 individual PRC applicants in the study). The final number of enrollments will depend upon take-up rates at the various stages of the study.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Treatment - 782 individuals
Control - 260 individuals

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

For our power calculations, we assume that p = 22%, which represents the eviction rate of PRC participants who received assistance between March 2024 and August 2024. This eviction rate is the self-reported eviction rates of PRC applicants who participated in a pilot experiment. We assume an alpha of 0.05, a ratio of 3:1 for the treatment vs. control group, an N of 1,042 and an MDE of 0.0892. This suggests that we would expect to detect an effect if the difference between the treatment and control groups were 8.9 percentage points, or a 13.1% eviction rate among the treatment group vs. a 22% eviction rate in the control group.

Supporting Documents and Materials

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

IRB