Introduction Data Methods Results Conclusions Appendix

Eviction: Intersection of Poverty, Inequality, andHousing

Ashley Gromis

Eviction Lab, Princeton Unveristy, Princeton, NJ, USA

United Nations Office at NairobiMay 22, 2019

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Introduction Data Methods Results Conclusions Appendix

Collaborators

Ian Fellows (Fellows Statistics)James HendricksonLavar EdmondsLillian LeungAdam PortonMatthew Desmond (Principal Investigator)

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What is Eviction?

Definition: Landlord forces tenant to vacate rental property

Other types of forced moves:

• Home foreclosure

• Condemned property

• Natural disaster

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Negative Health & Economic Consequences

• Poorer mental health(Desmond & Kimbro 2015; Fowler, Gladden, Vagi, Barnes, & Frazier 2014)

• Job loss(Desmond & Gershenson 2016)

• Material hardship(Desmond & Kimbro 2015)

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Negative Impact on Future Housing

• Increases residential instability(Desmond, Gershenson & Kiviat 2015))

• Relocation to disadvantaged neighborhoods(Desmond & Gershenson, 2016)

• Limits access to federal housing assistance(Greiner et al. 2013)

• Difficulting renting in private market(Kleysteuber 2006)

• Homelessness(Burt 2001; Crane & Warnes 2000; Weitzman, Knickman & Shinn 1990)

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Reproduction of Inequality

Disproportionately affects:

• Economically disadvantaged

• Minority communities

• Women

(Bezdek 1992; Desmond 2012; Hartman & Robinson 2003; Philadelphia Eviction Task

Force 2018)

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Local Studies of Eviction

• 2.4% of households in Detroit Metro (prior 12 months)Michigan Recession and Recovery Survey (Gould-Werth & Seefeldt 2012)

• 13% of Milwaukee renting households (prior 2 years)Milwaukee Area Renters Study (Desmond & Shollenberger 2015)

• 14% children born in U.S. cities (by age 15)Fragile Familes and Child Wellbeing Study (Lundberg & Donnelly 2019)

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How should we measure eviction?

• No official statistics

• Difficult to capture eviction using surveys

• Estimates affected by how and to whom question is asked(Desmond & Kimbro 2012)

• Hard to capture population(Tourangeau, Edwards, & Johnson 2014)

• Public court records of civil lawsuits• Not aggregated into national database

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How should we measure eviction?

• No official statistics

• Difficult to capture eviction using surveys

• Estimates affected by how and to whom question is asked(Desmond & Kimbro 2012)

• Hard to capture population(Tourangeau, Edwards, & Johnson 2014)

• Public court records of civil lawsuits• Created national dataset of eviction records

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Data Coverage

• LexisNexis Risk Solutions

• American Information Research Services

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Data Coverage

• 82,935,981 individual-level court records

• 26,353 aggregated county-year filing counts, 2000-2016

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What is in Eviction Court Records?

• Case information• Filing date• Location

• Parties• Plaintiff (Landlord) name & address• Defendant (Tenant) name & address

• Resolution (if resolved)• Judgment date• Outcome (e.g. Judgment for plaintiff, Settled, Dismissed)

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Estimation of Prevalence

• Definitions• Case Filings: Any eviction case initiated

• Evictions: Cases ending in eviction judgment

• Statistical modeling to estimate filings and judgments• Bayesian Hierarchical modeling (filings)

• Negative binomial regression (judgments)

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National Eviction Case Filings

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National Eviction Case Filings

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County-level Case Filing Rates, 2016

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Demographic Disparities

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Case Filing Disparities across States

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Repeated Filings & Eviction Judgments

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Prevalence of Eviction

• Common threat to renting households...

• 3.6 million cases annually• 1.5 million eviction judgments

• ...in areas outside national conversations on housing

• Highest prevalence in Southeastern United States

• Reproduces residential inequality

• Strong differences across states

• Likely strong role of landlord-tenant code

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Recommendations

• Clear policy implications

• Disincentivize use of courts for collection of past-due rent

• More uniformity in landlord-tenant code

• Scrutinize use of public records for tenant screening

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Thank You!

Data available at: https://evictionlab.org/

Methodology Report: https://evictionlab.org/methods/

Funding acknowledgment:JPB FoundationGates FoundationFord FoundationChan Zuckerberg Initiative

Ashley GromisPostdoctoral Research Associate, Eviction LabSociology Department, Princeton Universityagromis@princeton.edu

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Introduction Data Methods Results Conclusions Appendix

Total CasesYear Proprietary Data State Court Data

2000 1,115,496 159,9112001 1,599,757 239,3842002 1,852,351 299,5232003 1,922,931 323,4332004 2,112,148 336,2452005 2,323,079 341,5392006 2,346,524 553,2412007 2,168,318 563,7812008 2,422,506 578,8192009 2,396,487 560,0772010 2,577,471 818,4972011 2,661,063 876,9512012 2,626,225 857,1722013 2,557,112 861,8232014 2,604,022 826,1932015 2,479,508 794,9922016 2,397,706 269,139

Total 38,162,704 9,260,720

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Introduction Data Methods Results Conclusions Appendix

Percentage of Cases Part of Multi-Case Series

Highest ProportionsState Percent

Washington DC 59.9Delaware 54.4South Carolina 48.2North Carolina 45.4Virginia 34.7Pennsylvania 26.6Georgia 26.0Michigan 23.8Maryland 21.7Massachusetts 21.3

Lowest ProportionsState Percent

Nebraska 5.8Kentucky 5.8Washington 5.7Kansas 5.2California 5.2Idaho 4.4Montana 4.3Vermont 3.0Wyoming 2.9Hawaii 2.1

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