This blog was updated on 5/29/2024 to include upgraded versions of the Eviction Snapshots that provide more details on defendant representation and dismissed case outcomes. An additional metric, “Defendants Present at Hearing with Representation” was added to estimate the number of defendants who show up to their hearing who were able to reap the benefits of legal representation.
We also added clarification on the description of the dismissed case outcomes to provide readers with insight into the meaning of the different types of dismissal judgments. Additionally, an Appendix was added to the methodology documents that seeks to provide context and depth to some of the more complex aspects of the Eviction Snapshots including defendant representation, dismissed case outcomes, and appeals. We hope these additions are useful in interpreting the Eviction Snapshots with nuance and context.
Texas Housers has released Phase 1 of its 2024 Harris County Eviction Snapshots, which is an analysis of evictions in the county dissected at the Justice of the Peace precinct level. The Eviction Snapshots offer a detailed picture of the eviction crisis that Harris County is currently facing utilizing data reported from the Harris County Justice of the Peace Courts on key eviction metrics, such as case outcomes, defendant representation, and appeals in a given court. These profiles also use data collected by the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) to report metrics on renters such as the number of cost-burdened renters living in a given precinct, average rental median household income, and the median cost of rent.
These profiles aim to make evictions in Harris County more visible and continue critical conversations around the need for additional eviction diversion initiatives and tenant protections inside and outside of the Justice Court System for families at risk of, or currently facing, eviction. The COVID-19 pandemic placed a spotlight on the cruel nature of the eviction process, and governments reacted at all levels by swiftly implementing policies that conferred new protections and distributed necessary aid to renters confronted with the threat of displacement during a global health crisis.
While these additional protections and direct aid to renters have waned, renters are more cost-burdened in 2024 than before the pandemic, now without the resources and protections at their disposal to effectively avert the harm of an eviction and remain housed. Many cost-burdened renters are just one life emergency away from an eviction and, absent a strong local support system or access to community resources, homelessness.
By compiling relevant data on both the cost of renting and evictions in our 2024 Harris County Eviction Snapshots, Texas Housers intends to capture a broader picture that documents how housing affordability interacts with evictions in a given area.
We would like to thank a couple of individuals and organizations for their hard work on bringing this project to fruition. First, we would like to give a huge thanks to our Spring 2024 University of Houston CHIP Intern Stephenie Barragan for her significant contributions during her semester-long internship on various aspects of this project, ranging from data collection to overall design of the eviction snapshots. Second, we would like to thank Moksha Data Studio for performing some data analysis for this project.
The 2024 Harris County Eviction Snapshots, organized by Justice of the Peace Precinct, are Phase 1 of an ongoing Texas Housers project which seeks to map eviction and renter data across different political boundaries in the Houston-Harris County region to inform tenant protection and eviction diversion policy-making efforts. Stay tuned to Texas Housers’ media channels as this project continues later in Summer 2024.
Here are ten key takeaways from Texas Housers Harris County Eviction Snapshots, at organized by justice of the peace precinct:
1. Almost half of renting households in each justice of the peace precinct exceed the HUD-recommended amount of income to be spent on housing each month
Across all justice of the peace precincts in Harris County, over 45% of renter households in a given precinct are “cost-burdened,” as defined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This means that 45% of renter households spend 30% or more of their monthly income on rent. Regardless of what precinct renters live in, almost half of each precinct’s renters are feeling the financial pressure of a rising cost of living. We know this is where many individuals and families find themselves in trouble, as they are forced to decide between putting food on the table, child care, medical expenses, and rent.
2. Eviction filing rates are higher in precincts where a larger proportion of the renter population is cost-burdened
At 13% precincts 3 and 4 have the highest eviction filing rates in Harris County. This metric is taken by dividing the total number of renter households in a given precinct with the number of evictions filed in that precinct. The metric illustrates the proportion of renter households that have experienced an eviction filing in a given area. Both of these precincts have a higher eviction filing rate than Harris County overall, which sits at 10%. Moreover, both of these precincts alsohave the highest percentage of cost-burdened renters in Harris County; 52% of renters are considered cost-burdened in Precinct 4 and 51% of renters are cost-burdened in Precinct 3. The percentage of cost-burdened renters across these two precincts is also higher than the overall percentage of cost-burdened renters in Harris County at 49%. This may indicate that areas with more cost-burdened renter households will also have more households that experience an eviction filing – and there should be interventions and resources in these areas to correspond to this relationship.
3, In only 1 out of 8 Precincts is the median area rent affordable to a renter making the median area income
We calculated the median area rent that would be considered affordable to a renter whose income is the median area income by taking 30% of the monthly median area income and deducting a $100 utility allowance. This calculation revealed that in every Harris County precinct except one (Precinct 1), the median rent in the precinct is more expensive than this median “affordable rent” calculation. Though, the median income of an area is not necessarily reflective of the spectrum of incomes in a given area, or the fact that many renters live on an income that is much less than the median income in a given area. In the same way, the median area rent is not reflective of rental housing that is much lower or much higher than the median. So while this calculation helps us see that rent is largely unaffordable across Harris County, this lack of affordability will impact low-income renter households that make to an even greater extent.
4. Across all courts and precincts, the median back rent owed at the time of the eviction filing is only slightly higher than a month’s payment of the median area rent
The back rent is the amount of delinquent rent owed by the tenant at the time the eviction petition is filed by the landlord in court — which may not be reflective of the judgment amount the landlord seeks or receives following an eviction hearing. We found that across all 16 justice of the peace courts in 2023, the median back rent owed at the time of an eviction filing was less than two full months of the median area rent, per data from the county, in the precinct the case was filed in. Most of the time, the median back rent was a little over a month, or a month and a half of the median rent in a given precinct. Additionally, it must be noted that these numbers are both medians, meaning there will be back rent amounts and rent amounts that are significantly higher and lower in a given precinct. Even with this limitation, this comparison of median back rent and median rent in an area shows us that landlords are quickly moving to file evictions against tenants. And a Harris County renter who falls behind on even just one month’s rent payment could end up on a fast track to housing instability, or homelessness.
5. The majority of case outcomes resulted in a dismissal —but a dismissal comes in different forms with different implications
In Harris County, 43% of eviction cases filed resulted in a dismissal, making it the largest share of overall case outcomes compared to judgments for the plaintiff, default judgments, and judgments for the defendant. However, an eviction case can be dismissed for multiple reasons.
The first reason is that the parties came to a written agreement on either a repayment plan or an agreed move out date. Upon the terms of the agreement being fulfilled, the case is dismissed by the motion of the plaintiff. The plaintiff or landlord may also decide to dismiss the case if the tenant moved out before the hearing, or if an agreement was reached before the hearing. These dismissals, called Dismissals by Motion of the Plaintiff, also make up the majority of the dismissed judgments. Another reason a case may be dismissed is for “Want of Prosecution,” which is the technical term for a landlord/plaintiff not showing up to their court hearing. So the case is automatically dismissed. The third reason a case may be dismissed is by judge’s order due to an issue in the plaintiff’s eviction case — such as the eviction petition or the notice to vacate.
A dismissal is not automatically indicative of a favorable outcome for the tenant, as in several of these scenarios the tenant is still forced to relocate. Though this departure may be on more amicable terms than a court would be required to issue, it still carries the mark of an eviction filing on their record. So, even though in most cases a dismissal is still preferable to a judgment against the tenant, it is unclear from a dismissal whether the tenant was allowed to stay or leave, and to what extent it was on the tenant’s terms.
6. Between the county’s sixteen justice courts, each court is associated with different case outcomes, which raises questions about multiple dimensions of eviction hearings
After observing discrepancies in case outcomes between the 16 different justice of the peace courts, we ran a statistical test to determine if the court an eviction case is filed in had any impact on case outcomes. Case outcomes were grouped into two categories: “Against the Defendant,” which included judgements coded as Default Judgments and Judgments for the Plaintiff, and “Not Against the Defendant,” which included cases coded as Dismissed, or Judgments for the Defendant.
Our analysis found that the court the case is heard in and the outcome of the case are not independent, and that this association is statistically significant. Certain courts were more likely to be associated with outcomes not against defendants, such as Precinct 1, Place 2; whereas, others were more likely to be associated with outcomes against defendants, such as Precinct 2, Place 1. Given the narrow nature of an eviction suit under Texas Law, both in plaintiff’s burden of proof and defendant’s responses to the plaintiff’s claims — even if the facts of the eviction cases were to widely differ between courts — there should be some similarity between outcomes across all courts. We propose a few potential reasons for the discrepancies in case outcomes between courts, including differences between the courts in the following aspects:
- Voluntarily imposed court eviction diversion and/or alternative dispute resolution initiatives
- Courtroom procedures
- Judicial enforcement of the law
- Landlord compliance with the law
- Nature of the eviction claim
- Precinct boundaries and demographics
7. Close to 40% of judgments issued are default – issued to landlords when they show up to the hearing but the tenant does not
A high rate of default judgments indicates that a significant portion of tenants who are faced with an eviction filing do not even show up to their court hearing. This high default rate may be illustrative of three impediments defendants face to get to their eviction hearing: access to court, lack of understanding of eviction court, and fear from the eviction process.
First, looking at accessibility, tenants may not have meaningful access to court via transportation or court hours may conflict with work or family responsibilities. Second, tenants may not show up to court as they do not understand the eviction court process or their rights under the law and may be overwhelmed by having to appear in front of a judge and defend themselves. With all of this in mind, it must be noted that many tenants also self-evict before their eviction hearing — as a Notice to Vacate may be perceived as an eviction itself. Afraid of how their landlord may proceed, and unsure of their rights, a tenant may have already vacated the property by the time their eviction hearing approaches. The high amount of default judgments across the county warrants action to connect tenants with resources before the date of their hearing, and ensure they have meaningful access to court if they desire to deliver testimony on the day of their hearing.
8. Defendant representation has increased across Harris County, but is far from equal across all courts
Following multiple years of dedicated funding, defendant representation rates for individuals facing eviction have continued to increase in Harris County, with 2023 bringing in the greatest number of defendants with representation in the past 5 years. However, there is more work to be done to ensure access to legal representation, as only 2.3% of defendants in Harris County had representation in 2023. We also want to acknowledge that not all the work that legal aid does in eviction court leads to full representation during an eviction hearing, as legal aid may assist the parties to reach a settlement or provide legal advice before a hearing. Representation rates also drastically differ depending on the court, with the highest representation rate being in Precinct 6, Place 1 with 16.7% of defendants represented, and the lowest being in Precinct 8, Place 2, with only 0.33% of defendants represented. This indicates there is work to be done to not only ensure defendants have access to representation at their hearing, but also to make that access to representation equitable for tenants across Harris County regardless of what court their case was filed in.
9, One in ten eviction cases goes to appeals, meaning that the ruling from the justice of the peace is escalated to be reviewed by a higher court
Under Texas law, both parties have the right to appeal the judgment of the court following an eviction hearing. Tenants either file an appeal bond to the court that is set by the judge, usually two months rent or more, or they may file what is called an “Affidavit of Inability to Pay,” under which they pay their monthly rent into the court registry, and must pay the first month’s rent five days after they perfect their appeal. There are several motivations for filing an appeal. A party might have felt justice was not rendered during their initial hearing, or there was a fact of the case the judge did not consider to the fullest extent. For some tenants, an appeal is a last resort to buy more time before a Writ of Possession is requested by the landlord. Regardless of the reason, one in ten cases going to appeals indicates that there is a good amount of parties across Harris County who leave their eviction hearing with the desire for a second set of eyes on the facts of their case.
10, Over half of all evictions in Harris County are filed in only two precincts. There might be several factors that impact this, and several implications for what this means.
We found that 52% of all eviction filings in Harris County were located in only two precincts: Precinct 4 and Precinct 5. This shows there is an extremely disproportionate distribution of eviction cases amongst the justice of the peace courts. Landlords are required to file an eviction in one of the two justice of the peace courts within the precinct their property is located in —not rendering them much choice of where they file their suit. With this in mind, several factors may explain the disproportionate nature of the distribution of cases amongst these two precincts. First, approximately 50% of renter households in Harris County are located in Precinct 4 and Precinct 5, so it is almost intuitive to say that there will be more eviction filings in an area with a greater population of renters. Going a bit further into the demographic data, both Precinct 4 and Precinct 5 have some of the highest percentages of cost-burdened renter households in their Precincts, with 52% and 50% of renters being cost-burdened respectively, which also may contribute to the disproportionately high volume of eviction filings.
However, when looking at the median renter income in the area, Precinct 4 and 5 have the second and fourth highest compared to the other precincts, respectively. This is indicative of a wealth disparity within these precincts, considering Precinct 4 and 5 both cover vast geographies of Harris County, and both of their geographies contain a mix of both high-income renter household and low-income renter households. This relates to eviction filings as within these precincts. While there may be housing that is affordable to higher income renters, there may be a lack of affordable housing to low-income households, leading those renters to rent out of their price range, and contributing to higher volumes of eviction filings.
Texas Housers encourages you to examine these profiles, especially if you live in Harris County, to understand what evictions and the cost of renting look like in your area. We hope that these profiles serve as a conversation starter to inform advocacy efforts and keep the issue, and severe impacts of evictions, visible.
