I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. My research asks a central question for housing policy: how do tenant protection policies, the decisions of housing providers, and the contracts households sign shape housing instability, and what are the consequences for residents?

Research areas

The effectiveness and implementation of tenant protection policies

My recent work assesses Kansas City’s tenant right-to-counsel program (Journal of Urban Affairs, 2026), landlords’ turn to extra-judicial eviction under the COVID-19 moratorium (Housing Policy Debate, 2025), and the racial geography of rebounding eviction rates in post-moratorium St. Louis (Socius, 2025).

In the news:

• St. Louis Public Radio: “A St. Louis program aimed to prevent evictions. A short-term rental fee could help sustain it”

How the decisions of housing providers shape tenant stability

I study how the organizations that own and manage subsidized housing shape whether tenants stay housed. With Lisa K. Bates, I linked statewide Oregon eviction records to subsidized housing inventories to examine how eviction filing rates differ by owner, manager, and program type (Housing Policy Debate, 2026), building on an earlier report for Portland State University’s Center for Urban Studies (2024).

In the news:

• The Oregonian/OregonLive: “Oregon affordable housing landlords filed thousands of evictions in recent years, study finds”
• KOIN 6 News: “Oregon saw over 5K recent affordable housing eviction filings, PSU finds”

How lease and financing contracts structure default and dispossession

I examine how the terms of leases and home financing contracts structure default and dispossession. In “Built-to-Fail Home Financing,” a working paper with Patrick Fowler and Eric Seymour, we identify contract-for-deed and rent-to-own agreements from tens of thousands of eviction case exhibits in St. Louis and Kansas City and link them to property records.

Affordable housing, climate resilience, and health

With colleagues in public health, I study how the siting of affordable housing shapes residents’ exposure to climate hazards and their health, with a focus on the U.S. Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) and Brazil’s Minha Casa, Minha Vida (MCMV).

• MCMV Climate Resilience Tracker

Education

• Ph.D. in Public Affairs, minor in Population Studies – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• Master in Urban Planning – Tsinghua University
• Bachelor of Engineering in Urban Planning – Tianjin University

Contact

Please feel free to contact me at: yiw1@wustl.edu