Increasing Access to Affordable Housing Opportunities in Silicon Valley

Authors

Jackelyn Hwang, Stanford University, and Bina P. Shrimali, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

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October 8, 2019

The ever-growing concern about gentrification and displacement has resulted in a wide range of policy and programmatic solutions. Yet, little research has assessed the effectiveness of anti-displacement strategies, making it difficult to prioritize solutions. This study explores how renter protections affect mobility trends by focusing on the four Silicon Valley cities that currently have just cause for evictions and rent control ordinances: East Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose, and Los Gatos. Using a variety of datasets, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax Data (CCP), we examine how the presence of these ordinances affects mobility trends through four primary research questions: (1) How are outmigration patterns of residents related to the presence of tenant protection policies?; (2) How do outmigration patterns vary by household tenure, socioeconomic status, and policy?; (3) Where do people who leave neighborhoods with protected units move to?; and, (4) What is the effect of tenant protections on the likelihood of outmigration? (Revised December 2019.)