Young children and Black Americans are amongst those that are most affected by the threat of evictions, according to a new study.
Conducted by The Eviction Lab and the U.S. Census Bureau, the report is the first to gather information on the U.S. residents that have been threatened with an eviction.
Looking at the data from 38 million eviction court cases from the US Census Bureau database, the study found that each year, in the span of 2007 to 2016, 7.6 million people were faced with a potential eviction.
Children were found to be disproportionately affected as most families were threatened with eviction if they had children; according to the study, overall, 10.4% adults that had at least one child were faced with eviction each year. The rate was double that of adults renting without a child in the family.
Black women and their families were particularly affected as 28% of Black women faced with eviction threats had at least one child compared to 16% who didn’t have children.
Black Americans in general were found to be disproportionately affected as previous studies had underestimated the impact of racial disparities on potential evictions.
According to the study, although only 18.6% of renters are Black Americans, they account for approximately 50% of the families threatened with an eviction filing and roughly 43.4% of the families that get evicted; at this rate, each year an average of one in five Black Americans are threatened with evictions and one in ten are actually evicted.
With their latest findings, the researchers of the study hope to inspire change on a government level for those faced with evictions across the U.S.
“By constructing a linked dataset, we establish the scope of the American eviction crisis—including in the lives of children, 2.9 million of whom face eviction each year; and of Black Americans, who face substantially higher eviction rates across the income distribution—which can motivate research agendas and inform policy priorities,” wrote the researchers in their discussion.
The findings of the study, which once again highlighted the disparities that Black women face in eviction rates, come months after Legal Aid Chicago and HOPE Fair Housing Center filed cases against two Illinois landlords.
Highlighting their discriminatory eviction screening processes, Legal Aid Chicago is alleging that Hunter Properties “No Eviction” policy, which denies housing opportunities to people with past evictions, leads to discrimination against Black Americans, specifically Black women.
Meanwhile, the HOPE Fair Housing Center, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Housing, is alleging that Oak Park Apartments “No-Evictions” policy discriminated against Black renters and Black women, leading to residential segregation.
“The law needs to recognize how use of these screening policies uniquely harms Black women as they seek housing for themselves and their families,” said the Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Illinois, Emily Werth, per a statement. “Given the pernicious history of housing discrimination in Chicago and across Cook County, it is critical to address this continuing driver of discrimination and segregation.”
