In ZIP codes in the Central Austin area, those with greater percentages of minorities experienced higher eviction rates. MAPPING EVICTIONS
programs that saw high demand in recent months are drying up. Travis County closed its rental assistance program in March, just a week after reopening it, due to demand. “What we’re seeing is an affordabil- ity crisis that’s only been compounded by the pandemic,” Sanchez said. “… Rental prices here in Austin have increased tremendously, and people can just not afford to pay their rent.” U.S. Housing and Urban Develop- ment fair market rent estimates for the Austin metropolitan area rose more than 10% between fiscal years 2019 and 2022. According to data from real estate brokerage Redfin, average monthly rent in Austin has jumped more than 40% in the past year alone. While much of the spotlight on the evictions front is on tenants, land- lords, especially those of smaller properties, have also been burdened by recent trends. Emily Blair, executive vice presi- dent with the Austin Apartment Asso- ciation, said direct assistance proved to be the “best solution” across the industry by keeping money flowing through renters to property owners. But holds on eviction proceedings also left some without their custom- ary source of income. “Rental housing providers have to recover some of those losses at some point, and a good portion of the rental housing rates are definitely affected by the rental housing losses that we incurred in the last two years,” Met- ric Property Management President Lyndsay Hanes said. Days in court After receiving a notice to vacate, prompted by anything from failure to pay rent to lease violations, Texas ten- ants have three days to move out, or an eviction lawsuit can be filed. Legal proceedings could then take several weeks to resolve and, before 2020,
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eviction moratoriums suppressed the number, the underlying housing issues were further exacerbated by fiscal hardships for many residents who lost income or faced other economic and medical events during the pandemic. “It sounds like evictions are going to skyrocket and continue to increase, and that’s only going to compromise our local economy and our community even further,” said Pilar Sanchez, Travis County health and human services executive. Filings trend upward Between March and April 2020, eviction filings in Travis County plunged 96% as local orders aimed at delaying evictions went into effect, according to data from Princeton Uni- versity’s Eviction Lab. The county of nearly 1.3 million people historically saw well over 100 eviction cases filed each week, figures that dropped to around several dozen. In late 2021, those numbers began gradually rising as the CDC’s national eviction ban expired, according to Eviction Lab data. At least 2,300 eviction filings were logged in total from April 2020 through December 2021, an average of just over 110 per month. However, 2,517 filings have been tracked so far in 2022—more than 50% of Travis Coun- ty’s pandemic-era total in just three months. The number of filings grew from464 in January to 1,060 inMarch. “We are almost at where we were before the pandemic, but instead we are reeling from skyrocketing rent prices and people who are barely able to get recovered [from the pandemic],” said Mincho Jacob, communications coordinator for the tenant support organization Building and Strengthen- ing Tenant Action, or BASTA. At the same time, local assistance
Number of evictions since Jan. 2020
201-300
101-200
0-100
301-400
401-500
360
78731
78757
MOPAC
78752
78756
35
183
78751
78723
360
78703
78705
78722
78701
78702
78704
N
290 Racial majority
ZIP code
Evictions since Jan. ‘20
Rent increase% over five years
78701
White
50
15.96%
78702
White
120
18.18%
78703
White
28
-4.40%
78704
White
205
22.86%
78705
White
85
11.18%
78722
White
30
26.77%
78723
Other
454
18.18%
78731
White
45
2.04%
78751
White
68
18.42%
78752
Hispanic
170
18.18%
78756
White
31
25.00%
78757
White
109
15.57%
SOURCES: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY EVICTION LAB, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT/COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
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