RESEARCH PROJECTS

Eva Rosen's research examines the creation, experience, and persistence of urban poverty, focusing on housing policy and racial segregation. Rosen relies on mixed methods including ethnographic, qualitative, quantitative, and geographic mapping (GIS) data. Research projects have studied populations including relocated residents of former public housing on Chicago’s South Side, families displaced by Hurricane Katrina the RISK study, housing voucher recipients in Baltimore, families across three income groups making residential decisions, How Parents' House Kids, and landlords in four cities.

Housing Vouchers and Inequality in Baltimore

How do we house America’s poor and with what consequences? The Voucher Promise takes an in-depth look at America’s largest rental assistance program and how it shapes the lives of residents in one low-income Baltimore neighborhood. The book examines recent changes in American housing policy that have transformed the landscape of urban poverty from high-rise public housing to a voucher system where the poor are housed in the private market. Housing vouchers, formerly called “Section 8,” are a cornerstone of U.S. federal housing policy, offering aid to more than two million households. This transformation in assisted housing creates an important set of puzzles: How does a housing voucher impact a family’s residential experience? How are voucher holders received into new neighborhoods? Vouchers are meant to provide the poor with increased choice in the private rental marketplace, enabling access to safe neighborhoods with good schools and higher-paying jobs. But do they? 

The book takes us to a Northwest Baltimore neighborhood where I spent more than a year living, getting to know homeowners, sitting on front stoops, accompanying renters on housing searches, speaking to landlords, and learning about the neighborhood’s history. Over this time, I conducted ethnographic observations and 102 in-depth interviews, and gathered geographic and census data to understand how and why voucher holders disproportionately end up in this area despite rampant unemployment, crime, and abandoned housing. I explore why residents are unable to relocate to other neighborhoods, illustrating the challenges in obtaining vouchers and the difficulties faced by recipients in using them when and where they want to. The book demonstrates how—due largely to the influence of landlords—this housing policy can replicate the very inequalities it has the power to solve. Yet, despite the program’s very real shortcomings, I argue that vouchers offer basic stability for families and, with some important reforms, should remain integral to solutions for the nation’s housing crisis. 

Eva Rosen. The New York Times. February 17, 2021. “If ‘Housing Is A Right,’ How Can We Make It Happen?”

Interview with Jake Blumgart. City Monitor. August 26, 2020. “The promise and peril of the United States' affordable housing vouchers.”

Interview with Jared Brey. Next City. June 30, 2020. “‘The Voucher Promise’ in Baltimore.”

Eviction in Washington, DC

What do we know about how eviction works in DC? In a new project with sociology professor Brian McCabe, we examine eviction filing and eviction trends in the District of Columbia. Court policies impact eviction outcomes for tenants, but they have rarely been studied by eviction researchers. We focus on policies in Landlord-Tenant Court in Washington, DC to evaluate how local rules and regulations influence whether (and when) landlords file for eviction and how tenants navigate the Court system. We focus on three questions: 1) What is the geography of eviction in Washington, DC, and does neighborhood gentrification impact the incentives for landlords to file evictions? 2) How do court rules and regulations shape the incentives for landlords to file for eviction, and specifically, how do these regulations lead to the prevalence of serial eviction filing? 3) How does access to legal representation influence eviction outcomes for tenants in the Court? Drawing on extensive administrative records of nearly 200,000 eviction cases filed with the Landlord-Tenant Court between 2014 – 2019, this research will deepen our understanding of the impact of eviction and offer policy solutions for improving court processes. 

Georgetown Now. November 12, 2020. A Conversation with President Jack DeGioia.

October 22, 2020. “Eviction in Washington, DC: Racial & Geographic Disparities in Housing Instability.” Georgetown University DC Public Policy Institute and the McCourt School, Washington, DC.

Kyle Swenson. The Washington Post. October 8, 2020. “A small group of landlords is behind most of D.C.’s evictions, report says.”

Ally Schweitzer. The DC-ist. October 8, 2020. “D.C. Landlords Often Use Eviction Notices To Pressure Tenants For Rent, Study Shows.”