Evictions and Inequality in Washington, DC

In 2018, more than 31,000 eviction notices were filed in the Landlord-Tenant Branch (LTB) of the District of Columbia courts.  District residents receiving notices were disproportionately African-American, and very few appeared in court with legal representation.  Yet, despite persistent inequality in this process, we know remarkably little about the eviction process in the District, including the unequal impact of eviction and the consequences for poor families.

With funding from the Meyer Foundation, Eva Rosen (McCourt School of Public Policy) and I published a report on racial and geographic disparities in evictions. We report that the eviction process impacts 1 out of every 9 renter households in the District. Our research was widely cited in local media, including the Washington Post and WAMU, and we published an OpEd in the Post. These analyses have already contributed to conversations about crafting more equitable policies around eviction and housing instability in the District.

We have continued this research with a recent article in Housing Policy Debate identifying the “comparative analysis problem” in research on evictions. We are working on several additional analyses, including a look into the practice of serial filing in the District.