A new ARC data tool draws attention to the important issue of housing instability through detailed spatial and temporal visualizations of eviction filings in the five core counties of the Atlanta region.
Housing stability is crucial to a family’s physical, mental, and economic wellbeing. This stability is threatened when a family is faced with an eviction notice. Receiving such a notice is more than just a legal hurdle; it’s the start of a cascading series of disruptions that can follow a family for years [1]. Further, research highlights that losing one’s home has negative health consequences for families and communities [2].
The impact can be particularly devasting for children. According to recent research by the NBER, an eviction order essentially doubles the likelihood that a child will be forced to move, frequently pushing them into homelessness or “doubled-up” living situations and disrupting their education and development [3]. A filing alone creates a “permanent mark” on a family’s housing history that limits their future options [4].
Over the past few years, eviction filings have been particularly high in metro Atlanta but have leveled off since a peak in early 2023, according to Eviction Lab. The interactive chart below shows filing rates since January 2020 for metro Atlanta and several other areas for which Eviction Labs has recent data, including other large metros, Sunbelt metros, and metros in states with varying levels of tenant protection.1
Note that a filing “rate” here is defined as the monthly total of filings divided by the number of renter-occupied housing units in each metro area, per the 2024 ACS 1-year estimates.
Our new tool builds on previous and ongoing work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ARC partnered with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to collect and visualize eviction filings across Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton Counties.2
Recently, Eviction Lab added Atlanta to its suite of eviction filing dashboards covering the same five counties. We partnered with Eviction Lab to get up-to-date and property-level filing data for the area and built a new and complementary frontend around this rich dataset for exploration and analysis.
Our new tool can be accessed here and shows eviction filing rates (defined as the count of eviction filings divided by renter-occupied housing units) and raw eviction filing counts by several geographies: Census tract, city, high school statistical area, and hexagon.
While this tool provides transparency into the regional eviction filing landscape, it can also be effectively used as a catalyst for action. We envision several use cases for this tracker:
- Resource allocation: enabling local governments and nonprofits to direct rental assistance and emergency funds to the specific neighborhoods showing the highest filing rates.
- Strategic outreach: assisting legal aid organizations and tenant advocates in identifying “hotspots” where door-knocking campaigns or onsite legal clinics could prevent imminent displacement.
- Informing policy: providing policymakers with the empirical evidence needed to advocate for broader tenant protections and increases in the supply of affordable housing.
Many local partners are actively working to mitigate housing instability, including nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and local government. The connection between housing and health is a focus for the Atlanta Regional Collaborative for Health Improvement (ARCHI), who help to coordinate tenant resources across many of these partners. By framing housing as a critical health intervention, ARCHI helps regional partners to address housing instability and mitigate upstream health impacts. Their work underscores the fact that a stable home is a necessity for community wellness and economic resilience.
The importance of housing stability and persistent housing affordability challenges are precisely what this tool is designed to address. We intend to work closely with stakeholders to continuously expand its coverage and functionality.
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1 Note that eviction filings are a proxy for instability, not a perfect count of physical displacement of renters. In some instances, the data may result in an overcount of formal dispossessories, as “serial filings” can occur against the same household multiple times without resulting in a move. Conversely, the tool likely reflects an undercount of informal displacements where families vacate a property upon receiving a threat or form of intimidation before a formal legal filing ever enters the court system.
2 The original development team consisted of: Subhro Guhathakurta, PhD – Georgia Institute of Technology; Ge Zhang, PhD – Georgia Institute of Technology; Rama Sivakumar, MS – Georgia Institute of Technology; Victor Pearse Haley, MCRP – Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Sarah Stein, JD – Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Erik Woodworth, MA & MCRP – Atlanta Regional Commission; and John Herman, Software Engineer – Neighborhood Nexus.
[1] https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/evictions_collinson_reed.pdf
[2] https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/MEMO_Health_Effects_of_Eviction_on_Young_Adults.pdf
[3] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33659/w33659.pdf?utm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED
[4] https://evictionlab.org/docs/Eviction_Lab_Methodology_Report_2022.pdf