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

Last registered on July 10, 2023

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.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Tennessee - Knoxville

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of California - Irvine

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-01-08
End date
2024-10-01
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. 2023. "The Impact of Renter Education on Risk of Eviction for Tenants with and without Rental Assistance." AEA RCT Registry. July 10. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11572-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention is a renter education workshop, which is a 3-hour, in-person 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 (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-01-20
Intervention End Date
2024-04-06

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

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 3-hour, in-person 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
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?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
We estimate enrolling 1,267 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 - 900 individuals
Control - 300 individuals
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Our power calculations are derived from the equation proposed by McConnell & Vera-Hernadez (2015) for determining sample size for a study with a binary outcome. For our power calculations, we assume that p = 28%, which represents the eviction rate of PRC participants who received assistance between April 2020 and August 2021. We assume an alpha of 0.05, a ratio of 3:1 for the treatment vs. control group, and an MDE of 0.13. This suggests that we would expect to detect an effect if the difference between the treatment and control groups were 13 percentage points, or a 15% eviction rate among the treatment group vs. a 28% eviction rate in the control group.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Tennessee IRB
IRB Approval Date
2023-06-28
IRB Approval Number
UTK IRB-23-07507-XP

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials