Post-Pandemic Evictions and Mental Health: Examining Anxiety and Depression Among Bipoc and Non-Bipoc Renters

Background and Purpose:
Evictions are an increasingly salient threat to housing stability in the United States. Prior studies have established a link between eviction and adverse mental health outcomes. However, with the lapse of COVID-19 pandemic-era eviction moratoria, rates of evictions have skyrocketed in many communities, yet prior research has not fully examined whether there has been a corresponding change in the impact of eviction on mental health in the post-pandemic period. Furthermore, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities have historically faced disproportionate housing instability and mental health disparities, yet the potential role that races plays in modifying the effect of evictions on mental health outcomes has not been adequately examined. We thus address the following aims :

1. To assess whether the relationship between the perceived risk of eviction and anxiety and depression outcomes differs between the COVID-19 pandemic era and post-pandemic era
2. To examine the extent to which the negative effect of risk of eviction on anxiety and depression is amplified for BIPOC renters (as compared to their white counterparts) and whether racial differences in the impact of risk of evictions on mental health outcomes have changed from the pandemic to post-pandemic eras.

Methods:
This study uses nationally representative repeated cross-sectional data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey collected from the period stretching from July 2021 (when the Pulse Survey first began collection information about eviction) to January 2025. We limit our sample to individuals residing in renter households and identify whether waves of the Pulse data were collected during the pandemic or post-pandemic period using the end date of the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency to differentiate these two periods. To address the first aim, we used binary logistic regression models to examine the relationship between presence of clinically relevant symptoms of anxiety and depression (measured by the GAD-2 and PHQ-2, respectively) and self-reported risk of eviction, and whether this relationship differed in the post-pandemic era as compared to the pandemic era. To address the second aim, we estimated a parallel set of models that added a three-way interaction term between self-reported risk of eviction, pandemic era and race/ethnicity.

Results:

Unadjusted model results find that risk of eviction is associated with increased probability of anxiety and depression in both the pandemic and post-pandemic period, although this relationship is attenuated in the post-pandemic period. For example, in the pandemic period, risk of eviction is associated with a 3.3-fold increase in odds of depression, yet only a 1.4 fold increase in the odds of depression in the post-pandemic period. We find no evidence that relationship between risk of eviction and anxiety and depression differs for BIPOC renters as compared to white renters in either the pandemic or post pandemic era.

Conclusions and Implications:
Findings underscore the potential negative effects of eviction on mental health outcomes, and also suggest that the nature of the relationship between eviction and mental health has changed in the post-pandemic era. We consider implications for policy interventions.