Encampment Cleanups Aren’t the Answer: Bridging the Gap Between Housing Loss and Homelessness

On Friday, March 7, authorities in Washington, DC, cleared a homeless encampment near the State Department—forcibly removing people residing there. The action came at the behest of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser following orders from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump’s own personal calls for a citywide cleanup. On the Wednesday prior, Trump warned Bowser on Truth Social that she “must clean up all of the unsightly homeless encampments in the City,” and “If she is not capable of doing so, we will be forced to do it for her!” 

While the Mayor’s Office already had plans to remove 10 encampments across DC, this expedited “cleanup” serves as a stark reminder that housing instability and homelessness are not just pervasive and growing challenges throughout the United States, but are increasingly criminalized and scapegoated by policymakers seeking to placate one another. It’s estimated that several million Americans lose their homes through eviction each year, and last year saw a record surge in homelessness numbers.

Although Trump claims to want a “CLEAN and SAFE” city, these cleanups aren’t paired with policies or plans to curb the homelessness epidemic and tackle the housing crisis that underpins it. The consequences of housing loss are destabilizing and traumatic, often leading to a downward spiral for individuals and families. Research shows that eviction is linked to job loss, financial fragility, physical and mental health challenges, and poor educational outcomes for children. So eviction isn’t simply a housing issue—it’s a public health crisis, an economic issue, and a social justice problem. And while the DC mayor, Trump administration, and other decision-makers seem to keep track of the encampments popping up around the city, the United States fails to adequately track evictions or the long-term effects they have on families. 

In 2021, the National League of Cities found that nearly 40 percent of rural officials and 25 percent of urban officials didn’t know whether evictions had increased or decreased locally in the prior year, much less where evictions were most concentrated or who was most at risk. Our own research at New America found that one in three U.S. counties lack annual eviction data entirely.

You can’t solve a problem if you can’t measure it. For American policymakers to truly understand and address eviction—as well as its link to homelessness and its broader impacts—the U.S. must improve its tracking of housing loss. We need better and more accessible data on evictions and homelessness, along with tools that make it easier to analyze trends and outcomes. 

Many of America’s housing challenges stem from the affordability crisis. According to the Brookings Institution, the U.S. was short nearly 5 million housing units in 2023. Half of American tenants are considered “rent burdened,” meaning they spend 30 percent or more of their monthly income on housing. As a result, homelessness is now at a record high, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Eviction isn’t simply a housing issue—it’s a public health crisis, an economic issue, and a social justice problem.”

But without reliable data, it’s nearly impossible to understand where and why evictions are happening, and even more difficult to track what happens to people afterwards. Do they become homeless? Are they couchsurfing or doubling up with friends or family? Or, against the odds, do they find another rental? Because data collection is fragmented and inconsistent, we’re left with more questions than answers.

The lack of reliable eviction data is particularly concerning at the local level, where most decisions are made about housing policy and support services. Most local courts don’t have the mandate or the resources to collect and share eviction data, which results in a mishmash of incomplete, inaccessible records. Some courts don’t digitize eviction records at all, while others do so in formats that make it hard to pull out useful data. Even when eviction data is made available, housing groups and other stakeholders often lack the resources to clean and analyze it, making research time and resource-intensive. 

Take Fort Wayne, Indiana. A few years ago, local officials worked with the courts to obtain local eviction records. But converting those records into a usable format for analysis took weeks for the office’s only geographic information systems specialist, an unsustainable practice in the long run. 

Despite these obstacles, there are ways to improve eviction data collection, access, and analysis. New America’s Eviction Data Response Network, for instance, brings together government, university, and nonprofit partners from across the U.S. to share technical expertise and develop solutions around eviction data. Several network partners are focused on tracking what happens after eviction court: Where do families go? How many end up homeless?

Federal legislation requires homelessness service providers to help maintain a local Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), which tracks individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Yet HMIS isn’t always effective for local-level analysis. The quality of data entered into the system varies, and pulling meaningful insights from it can be difficult. Localities with more comprehensive, real-time data, such as high-quality, by-name lists of individuals experiencing homelessness, perhaps offer a better opportunity to understand the full cycle of housing instability and loss. 

Ultimately, developing robust data systems to improve understanding of evictions, homelessness, and the relationship between the two, will take time, resources, and potentially congressional action. By improving the data we collect, we can better understand the causes and consequences of housing loss and implement more effective policies and programs to prevent it. 

When local housing leaders—whether city and county officials, community-based organizations, legal aid providers, or tenant organizers and journalists—have access to reliable eviction and homelessness data, they can take meaningful action to address inequities in housing instability. From using heat maps to target rental assistance to spotlighting the racial disparities in housing stability, data is a powerful lever for driving accountability and systemic change.

If elected officials like Mayor Bowser and President Trump  truly want to ensure communities like DC are “clean and safe,” then they must confront the reality that eviction and homelessness are everyday experiences for millions of people. That fact won’t just go away on its own. If we want to solve the housing and homelessness crises, we need the data—and the will—to act.

Follow The Thread! Subscribe to The Thread monthly newsletter to get the latest in policy, equity, and culture in your inbox.