Mom-and-pop landlords are the majority owners of small, multi-family residential units—which are often the affordable housing options in local communities—and are critical to preventing evictions. They are also more likely to be socially and economically vulnerable and house lower-income tenants. Engaging mom-and-pop landlords is key to longer-term eviction prevention efforts, housing stability, and supporting both vulnerable renters and landlords.

This toolkit includes a series of resources developed for city leaders interested in building or refining their strategies for engaging landlords. These resources offer important insight into key elements of a successful landlord engagement strategy.

Key topics explored in each resource include:

  • A step-by-step framework to build a mom-and-pop landlord engagement strategy
  • Tips on how to develop systematic and standard methods to collect, share and update information on landlords to aid in relationship building, outreach, and developing more targeted programs and policies
  • An overview of incentives and ideas for how to incentive landlords to engage in eviction prevention

Download all currently available resources in the Landlord Engagement Lab Toolkit, or access the individual resources below.

Developing a Mom-and-Pop Landlord Engagement Strategy to Prevent Evictions

Developing a Mom-and-Pop Landlord Engagement Strategy to Prevent Evictions

A step-by-step framework to build a mom-and-pop landlord engagement strategy.

Identifying Mom-and-Pop Landlords to Build Relationship and Support Eviction Prevention

Identifying Mom-and-Pop Landlords to Build Relationship and Support Eviction Prevention

Tips on how to develop systematic and standard methods to collect, share and update information on landlords to aid in relationship building, outreach, and developing more targeted programs and policies.

Incentivizing Landlords to Advance Eviction Prevention

Incentivizing Landlords to Advance Eviction Prevention

An overview of incentives and ideas on how to effectively motivate landlords to engage in eviction prevention.

Designing and Implementing Local Eviction Prevention Policies and Programs

Designing and Implementing Local Eviction Prevention Policies and Programs

Recommendations for cities about the spectrum of policies and programs that can serve mom-and-pop landlords and prevent evictions.

Evaluating Eviction Prevention Policies and Programs

Evaluating Eviction Prevention Policies and Programs

An evaluation framework to ensure policies and programs are achieving their intended goals.

Communicating with Mom-and-Pop Landlords

Communicating with Mom-and-Pop Landlords

Suggestions on how cities can strengthen their internal coordination and communications and how cities can communicate with landlords about services, programs and policies.

These resources were developed by the National League of Cities and the Stanford Legal Design Lab.

The research was funded by the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Inc. and we thank them for their support. The findings and conclusions presented in this report and those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Foundation.