Eviction filings soar above pre-pandemic levels in some cities

Rising rental costs nationwide pushed up eviction filings far above pre-pandemic levels in parts of the country after COVID-19 protections ended, according to recent data. 

Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, which tracks evictions in 34 cities and 10 states nationwide, found that in some cities, evictions filings are up by 50 percent or more from pre-pandemic figures.  

Landlords nationwide file around 3.6 million eviction cases annually. 

Eviction filings soared in Minneapolis/St. Paul in May, with filings reaching more than 56 percent above the average recorded before the pandemic. In March, filings were up by 106 percent from the average. And in Houston, filings in May were 50 percent greater than their pre-pandemic levels. 

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Filings in Phoenix were up 33 and 35 percent respectively in May, the data showed. 

Rents have skyrocketed in recent years, rising by close to 5 percent in the last year, according to data from the real estate company Zillow. 

These rising costs have also increased the nation’s rent burden and increased the number of hours a full-time employee earning minimum wage must work to afford a modest one- or two-bedroom rental, a separate report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition revealed. 

An employee earning minimum wage would have to work an average of 104 hours per week to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment at a fair market price and about 86 hours for a one-bedroom. 

Full-time employees need $23.67 per hour to afford a fair market, one-bedroom rental home without exceeding 30 percent of their income. For a modest two-bedroom rental, workers need to earn $28.58 an hour. 

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Lawmakers near the onset of the pandemic implemented a series of protections for Americans, including eviction moratoriums. A separate Eviction Lab analysis shows that the COVID-19 eviction moratorium drastically reduced the number of evictions.  

The analysis shows there were an estimated 800,000 fewer eviction cases during the eviction moratorium in the cities tracked by the Eviction Lab, which amounts to a reduction of 57.6 percent. 

Before the pandemic, about 1 in 6 renters faced an eviction filing, but the number fell to around 1 in 12 between the start of the pandemic and the end of 2021.