Facilitating the Use of Local Court Eviction Data

Each year, an estimated 5 million Americans are evicted from their homes. The primary source of eviction data in the United States are the eviction lawsuits that landlords file in local courts. In an ideal world, this data—referred to as court eviction data—would be accessible and useful by housing entities to better understand and prevent evictions in local communities.

However, the availability and quality of this data varies across the United States and is often inaccessible and of poor quality. These data challenges, notably when combined with no federal mandate to collect or standardize court eviction data, means that local entities must develop their own pathways to access and use this data in actionable and recurring ways.

Building off ongoing efforts to improve this data, New America conducted focus groups with local users of court eviction data in the spring of 2023. The goal of these focus groups was to better understand the barriers and facilitators in accessing and using court eviction data, including what supports are most needed. Background, methods, and key findings from these focus groups are summarized in the presentation below, which can also be downloaded here.