Temporary Protections and the Rebound of Eviction Filings in Florida, 2019–2025

Abstract

Housing insecurity is one of the most urgent social problems in the United States, with eviction filings reflecting an important dimension of housing instability. This paper analyzes 75 monthly Florida eviction-filing observations from January 2019 through March 2025 to examine whether filing trajectories changed during and after pandemic-era tenant protections. Guided by an institutional temporality framework, we used descriptive analyses, a policy-guided interrupted time-series (ITS) model with Newey–West/HAC inference, a Fourier-seasonal dynamic regression with autoregressive errors, and exploratory segmented regression. The filing numerator covers all 67 Florida counties. Counts were the primary outcome; a secondary author-calculated rate used a fixed denominator of 2,794,102 renter-occupied housing units from the 2019–2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Table B25003. Mean monthly filings were 10,766 before March 2020, 6551 during March 2020–June 2021, and 11,701 during July 2021–March 2025. The primary ITS estimated an immediate March 2020 decline of 6854 filings (95% CI: 4541–9166 fewer; p < 0.001); the preferred AR(2) dynamic model also supported a large March decline (5957 fewer; p = 0.011). The July 2021 immediate change and direct tests of a higher post-period trajectory were not statistically significant. Overall annual seasonality was supported, but the apparent January and October peaks were not significant after adjustment. Florida filings therefore fell sharply around the onset of pandemic protections and subsequently returned toward the historical range, without statistically credible evidence that the post-moratorium trajectory became higher than the pre-pandemic trajectory.