Eviction Lab: Renter evictions an ‘epidemic’ since COVID pandemic

Al Lawson wants action to prevent evictions. Image via AP.

Residential renter evictions are going up across America, and four Florida cities have seen some of the most dramatic increases of residents getting kicked out of their rental units.

The Eviction Lab is an organization dedicated to tracking eviction notices across the U.S. and has declared that there is an “eviction epidemic” trending in America. In the past year, there have been about 1.08 million evictions across the country. In just the past month, there were 77,840 evictions nationwide in the 10 states and 34 cities the researchers track.

In Florida, the project focused on four cities including Tampa, Gainesville, Jacksonville and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area.

The South Florida metro area had the most dramatic number of evictions in the past year, recording 32,302 evictions. That’s 8% more evictions than before the COIVD pandemic set in.

Tampa recorded 20,083 evictions in the past year, a 14% jump from the pre-COVID era. Jacksonville saw 14,214 evictions in the past year, a 19% spike from the years before the pandemic. Gainesville saw the biggest percentage increase with 1,627 total evictions, a whopping 46% jump from the pre-COVID era.

The Eviction Lab is a consortium of researchers, academics, economists and students that uses eviction records within county court systems to compile their data. The site is following the number of evictions, noting they have spiked dramatically since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in March 2020 as affordable housing is becoming shorter in supply.

The Eviction Lab acknowledged the outbreak of renter evictions has been extreme across the board since the pandemic. But minorities face some of the most serious challenges when it comes to staying in their rental units.

There are often large racial/ethnic and gender disparities in the threat of eviction — for example, over the last year, 58% of people facing eviction were women, a count that is disproportionately made up of more Black and Latina women.