Youth Research Projects on Eviction in the City of Richmond! 

Starting in the Fall of 2019, The RVA Eviction Lab and VCU Social Work Professor Alex Wagman received a grant from VCU to build partnerships with 3 youth-centered organizations: Advocates for Richmond Youth, 6 Points Innovation Center/Storefront for Community Design, and RVA Thrives/Virginia Community Voice. The partnership, named Youth Empowerment for Eviction Research (YEER) spent the past year with a cohort of five young people from each organization learning about the roots of eviction and housing instability, developing research questions and learning about research methods.

This fall, the young people are ready to launch their research projects and are actively recruiting for research participants. See their project descriptions below for information about how to engage with their projects!

Advocates for Richmond Youth: We are working to capture the unique experiences and learn the impacts of evictions on the LGBTQIA+, Black and Brown community in GREATER Richmond. We will be interviewing young people ages 18 to 30 who live in the Greater Richmond area, identifying as LGBTQIA+ and black/brown. We want to build trust with other young people while also sharing our experiences. We hope to use the data to map out the movements of the participants throughout their eviction process and afterwards.We also hope to use the data to raise awareness of the experiences of LGBTQI+ black and brown people who experience evictions. We hope that the findings from the research will help individuals be the change they want to see, create more resources (ex. Second chance housing opportunities, forgiveness, etc), and reduce barriers to help people get back into safe; affordable; and stable housing. (Link to their eligibility survey is here )

6 Points Innovation Center (City Builders Program) We believe eviction causes mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression that may lead to committing gun violence. We think that trauma, such as domestic violence in the home and even trauma triggers, like loud noises can lead people to be jumpy and afraid causing them to use a gun as self-defense. We believe there is both intentional and unintentional violence, brought on by trauma. We’ve all had personal experience with trauma, eviction or housing displacement, so this is very important to us.

With the surveys we hope to give people a sense of comfort and relatability. We’re currently learning about the impact eviction has on people and the resources available to assist them. With this knowledge, we will be able to help others in the future who experience trauma, eviction or housing displacement. Link to their survey here

RVA Thrives/Virginia Community Voice: The RVA Thrives Youth research team focused their study on the impact the eviction process has on individuals mental health on the Southside of Richmond. The team will host two focus groups for those impacted by eviction. (Eligibility survey here)

Evictions in the Commonwealth during the COVID 19 Pandemic

Summary of Findings

RVA Eviction Lab Staff

September 8, 2020

Across the Commonwealth

• 169,000 to 262,000 households are at risk of eviction, which would include 88,000 to 134,000 households with children, affecting a total population of 301,000 to 741,000 Virginians. The estimated rent shortfall is $169 to $370 million. On average, tenants owe more than $2,000 in back rent.

Regional Perspectives

Central Virginia

• In Richmond, Henrico County, Petersburg, and Hopewell, the respective average principal amounts of owed rent between January and August were $1,363, $1,795, $1,488, and $1,412. In Chesterfield County, the average principal amount was $2,316.
• 7 ZIP codes have higher eviction rates, COVID cases, and UI claims than 70% of other ZIP codes in the region. Almost all of these ZIP codes are majority or plurality Black.
• In Richmond, 50% of the unlawful detainers filed from 2015 to 2018 were in 22% of the city’s rental housing stock. In Hopewell, 32% of unlawful detainers from 2015 to 2019 were in 18% of the city’s rental housing stock. In Petersburg, 38% of the city’s judgments from 2015 to 2019 were concentrated in 23 percent share of the rental housing stock.

Hampton Roads

• In Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, the respective average principal amounts owed in eviction filings from January to August of 2020 were $1,747, $1,604, $1,939, and $2,069. The average amount owed was highest in Newport News at $,2154.
• 7 ZIP codes have higher than average eviction rates, and COVID cases and UI claims that are higher than 75% of other ZIP codes in the region. Five of these ZIP codes have a majority or plurality of Black residents.

Northern Virginia

• The average principal amounts owed in eviction filings from January to August 2020 ranged from a low of $1,642 in Stafford County to a high of $3,280 in Loudoun County.
• 11 ZIP codes have eviction rates, and COVID cases, and UI claims that are higher than 75% of other ZIP codes in the region. These factors are disproportionately impacting areas where Black and Hispanic families live and seem to be especially tied to areas of concentrated Hispanic residence.

For the full report: Eviction in the Commonwealth during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Evictions Across the Commonwealth

RVA Eviction Lab Staff

August 18, 2020

Summary of Key Findings

Across the Commonwealth of Virginia—with the exception of Roanoke, where COVID-19 infections have been relatively low—the overlap of eviction and COVID-19 demonstrates the connection between risk of eviction and risk of COVID-19. Patterns of evictions have remained consistent over time, with Black and Brown communities facing the most intense impacts of eviction – and now, COVID-19.

• Nearly 55,000 evictions were filed from January to July of this year, and more than 19,000 eviction judgements were issued.
• 16% of renters report they did not pay July rent and 28% have little or no confidence in making August rent.
• An estimated 169,000 to 262,000 households are at risk of eviction, which includes 88,000 to 134,000 households with children, affecting a total population of 301,000 to 741,000 Virginians.
• On average, tenants facing eviction during the pandemic owe more than $2,000 in back rent.
• We estimate an existing rent shortfall of up to $211 million, with up to an additional $160 million in missed rent payments in the coming weeks.
• Analysis for the City of Richmond shows that evictions are concentrated among owners who own 25 or more units, owning 61% of rental housing and seeking 70% of eviction judgements.
• The average renter household rents from an owner of more than 25 units in Richmond.
• The majority of eviction judgments in Richmond are pursued by owners of 22% of the rental housing.

For more detailed information, please refer to the report: Evictions Across the Commonwealth August 2020

CARES Moratoirum Eviction Filings

We identify 1,055 eviction filings across 108 properties in Henrico County, Chesterfield County and the City of Richmond. These represent 26%, 14% and 33% of the total pending eviction cases in each jurisdiction.

For more information, please see our recent data brief:

CARES Moratoirum Eviction Filings

Data Update: Eviction Filings During the COVID-19 Crisis

June 26, 2020

Kathryn Howell, PhD; Ben Teresa, PhD; Woody Rogers, Connor White

Eviction in the Commonwealth has exposed existing race-based inequalities in the built environment and policy landscape that have developed over more than a century, including Redlining, Urban Renewal, and ongoing racist lending practices. In the past two years since the release of the Princeton Eviction Lab data revealed that the Commonwealth of Virginia had some of the highest eviction rates in the country across its large and small cities, community-based organizations, advocacy organizations, local governments, and state agencies have created diversion programs and hired new staff to develop long term solutions to the challenge of housing instability. Yet eviction rates have been stubborn, and the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 virus in the commonwealth have further exposed inequalities across the commonwealth.

In this data update, we examine eviction filings to understand both expand our understanding of the geography of past housing instability and look to the future to think strategically about how to engage and prevent housing displacement moving forward. We use filings as an indicator of instability because the threat of eviction can lead to many of the same mental health, employment and educational impacts of an actual move. Moreover, because the bulk of eviction proceedings are due to non-payment, the receipt of a notice means that a household has, for a number of reasons, had trouble paying rent, and this may suggest budget instability and other bills that may be missed in the effort to remain in the home.

We therefore examine filings from January to May in 2019 and 2020 that have received a hearing – as well as those on the docket moving forward with indicators such as race, COVID-19 infections, and Unemployment Insurance claims at the zip code level to illustrate the risk moving forward. While we give the overall landscape for Henrico County, Chesterfield County and the City of Richmond, we take a deep dive into Richmond to illustrate risks to housing instability moving forward. Though zip code is a broad data category, it allows us to look at all data through the same unit of analysis as the Commonwealth does not release eviction, COVID or UI data at a more granular level.

Achieving Coordinated Access to Services for Tenants

Talya Lockman-Fine

April 2020

In recent years, growing awareness of the eviction crisis has prompted a growing number of responses, mainly at the state, city, and local levels. So far relatively unaddressed, however, has been the issue of efficiently and effectively connecting tenants to the resources and services they need. In Richmond, as well as in many other places, the lack of a centralized access system — through which tenants’ needs are identified and they are matched with relevant providers — has a number of consequences: tenants have difficulty identifying and accessing relevant resources and services; providers are unable to serve the tenants they are best equipped to serve; and policymakers and others are unable to identify gaps, duplication, and opportunities for coordination that could drive improvements in service provision. Part I of the report outlines this problem generally and provides an overview of a number of key components such a system should entail, including: an accessible tenant interface; an up-to-date mapping of providers, the services they offer, and how to access them; policies and procedures for matching tenants to providers; a monitoring and evaluation system; and mechanisms through which analysis of the system can drive improvements. Part II focuses on Richmond, detailing the need for such a system, what key components could look like, and a high-level action plan for moving toward it. The appendix includes research on currently existing analogues, typically referred to as one stop shops or housing resource centers, in other jurisdictions. The hope is that this report is a starting point for building an evidence base on what works in terms of centralized access systems for tenants at risk of eviction.

Eviction in Richmond: Pathways, Services and Next Steps

Alexandria AsheRVA Eviction Lab

Since the 2018 study by Princeton University revealed that Richmond has the second-highest eviction rate of all major cities in the United States, local organizations and leaders have been joining efforts to resolve the eviction crisis and target root causes to the issue (evictionlab.org). Eviction has a disproportionate impact on youth, as families with children are more likely to be evicted than other types of renters (Bernet et al., 2015; Desmond & Gershenson, 2017). Eviction and its accompanying housing instability also have acute consequences for children’s physical and mental health, development, and cognitive performance.  Households facing eviction make decisions in distress and often flood into poorer quality neighborhoods, in turn perpetuating neighborhood inequality and instability at both the household and community levels and decreasing children’s opportunities for upward mobility (Chetty et al., 2018; DeLuca et al., 2019; Desmond & Gershenson, 2017). As a result, having services to address both immediate needs during an eviction proceeding and to find stable, affordable housing in the long term is critical to helping households recover from evictions.

In Richmond, where service providers – including social services and legal services providers – have been on the frontlines of eviction for more than a decade, there have been ongoing efforts including pro bono legal services, emergency rental assistance and utility assistance. Yet after the 2018 report, there has been greater support for tenant-based assistance. In October 2018, the Virginia Poverty Law Center partnered with the Legal Aid Society and initiated the Eviction Helpline to help tenants understand their rights regarding the eviction process. However, the coordination, quantity and quality of services remains an ongoing challenge.

Using interviews with individuals who called the Eviction Helpline in 2019, this brief investigates the ways the available services are used by individuals in crisis. We start by discussing the pathways these residents take to eviction then discuss the services they used through the process. This brief ends by discussing potential alternatives to the current structure used based on interviews and national best practices. Based on the interviews, we have been able to find patterns in the eviction process that are shared that help contribute to our larger understanding of what evictions look like within our community.