The federal moratorium on evictions ended on August 26 after a 6-3 vote by the Supreme Court. The moratorium had been implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and extended by the Biden administration days after it was set to expire on July 31. Now that the federal moratorium has ended, researchers at Eviction Lab recently released a report on preliminary data following 11 months of the CDC moratorium.
Between September 4, 2020 and July 31, 2021, Eviction Lab tracked evictions from 31 cities and six states, home to one in every four renter households in the US. Using data from the Eviction Tracking System, researchers observed 368,398 eviction filings across jurisdictions monitored. This represents less than half as many eviction filings (47.2%) as expected over the same period in a typical year. Eviction Lab predicts that the CDC moratorium helped to prevent 1.55 million eviction filings nationwide.
Interestingly, the report summarized that:
- In some areas, eviction filing rates were close to historical average, meaning that the CDC order had little if any effect on eviction patterns. In Las Vegas, filings were at 91% of historical average overall, though they were considerably lower between December 15, 2020 and May 31, 2021, when local protections were in place.
- A large number of eviction cases originated from a relatively small number of Census tracts. Neighborhoods with high eviction filing rates prior to the pandemic continued to see the highest rates during the CDC moratorium.
- While the CDC moratorium was in place, eviction filings continued to disproportionately impact Black and LatinX – particularly women – renters. Prior to the pandemic, Black renters made up 22% of all renters in ETS sites, but received 35% of eviction filings. During the CDC moratorium, they continued to receive 33% of filings.
Click here to read the full report.