Princeton University launched a new database, Eviction Lab (evictionlab.org), which highlights alarming rates of individuals and families that are housing unstable due to evictions across the country. From the collection of 83 million records, the Lab has found that 2.3 million evictions were filed in 2016.
The Lab results show that three Indiana cities rank in the top 20 large city of eviction filings in the United States for 2016, the latest data available. According to the data, Indianapolis had 11,570 evictions in 2016, which amounts to 31.7 households evicted every day and 7.27 in 100 renter homes evicted over the year. Further, data shows Indiana's eviction rate of 4.07% in 2016 is 1.73% higher than the national average. (See end of post for Indiana eviction ratings by city size).
The Lab is led by Sociologist Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, who cites roughly 20 years of flat income levels while housing costs have increased as a primary source of these issues. Desmond, speaking to Terry Gross, discussed the effects eviction has on individuals, “Eviction comes with a mark that goes on your record, and that can bar you from moving into a good house in a safe neighborhood, but could also prevent you from moving into public housing, because we often count that as a mark against your application. So we push families who get evicted into slum housing and dangerous neighborhoods.” He goes on to say that they have studies linking eviction to job loss due to stress and the mental and physical health impacts related to the event.
"Eviction isn't just a condition of poverty; it's
a cause of poverty," Desmond says in the interview. "Eviction is a direct cause of homelessness, but it also is a cause of residential instability, school instability [and] community instability."
For more: see this New York Times piece on the release of the database (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/07/upshot/millions-of-eviction-records-a-sweeping-new-look-at-housing-in-america.html) and this NPR Fresh Air interview with Desmond (https://www.npr.org/2018/04/12/601783346/first-ever-evictions-database-shows-were-in-the-middle-of-a-housing-crisis)
Large Cities in Indiana:
- 1. Fort Wayne 7.39%
- 2. Indianapolis 7.27%
- 3. South Bend 6.71%
- 4. Evansville 0.5%
Mid-Size Cities in Indiana:
- 1. Marion 8.52%
- 2. Elkhart 8.5%
- 3. Kokomo 7.95%
- 4. Lawrence 7.81%
- 5. Lafayette 6.86%
- 6. Gary 6.3%
- 7. Goshen 5.38%
- 8. Merrillville 4.7%
- 9. Hammond 3.8%
- 10. Michigan City 3.62%
Small Cities and Rural Areas in Indiana:
- 1. Waterloo 24.4%
- 2. Cromwell 13.79%
- 3. Grabill 13.73%
- 4. New Chicago 13.69%
- 5. Bryant 12.5%
- 6. Griffith 11.27%
- 7. Howe 10.76%
- 8. Cumberland 10.49%
- 9. Speedway 9.79%
- 10. Garrett 9.01%
