IAs the United States moves past the COVID-19 pandemic, low-income renters face a deeply inhospitable housing market. The country lacks millions of units of affordable rental housing, and in those units that are available, a record number of tenants are paying well beyond their means. High interest rates prevent younger, middle-class renters from buying homes, which in turn increases demand in the rental sector. How did this combination of factors affect eviction rates in 2023? How does the answer vary across the U.S.?

To answer those questions, we turn to data from the Eviction Tracking System (ETS). Since 2020, we’ve been tracking the records of new eviction court filings in 10 states and 34 cities nationwide, areas that are collectively home to about one in every three American renters. In this brief, we provide an annual recap of eviction trends, as we did in previous years (check our older blog posts for our analysis in 2020, 2021, and 2022). We are particularly interested in how renters in different places face different levels of eviction risk. Housing instability varied prior to the pandemic, and here we highlight how those divides grew over the last four years.

In 2023, landlords filed 9.4% more eviction cases than in 2022. In total, 1,114,340 eviction cases were filed across the jurisdictions where we collect data. Overall, that represents 2.9% fewer cases than we would have seen in these places prior to the pandemic, but still a large increase from what we observed early in the pandemic, when only about 540,000 cases were filed in 2020 and 2021 (see Figure 1).

While eviction caseloads were up overall, there was a lot of variation in year-over-year changes across the country. While some places saw case filing numbers fall between 2022 and 2023, others saw sizable increases.

To capture that variation, we display changes in eviction filings for each of the cities in the ETS in Figure 2. Specifically, we plot filings relative to historical average in each city for both 2022 and 2023, with an arrow indicating the direction and scale of the year-over-year change. Cities are aligned from top to bottom based on 2023 filings relative to historical average; cities with the highest relative filings are at the top of the graph.

Of the 30 cities where we have complete data coverage, 23 saw a relative increase in eviction filings between 2022 and 2023. This proportional increase was largest in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN, where caseloads rose from 138% of average (11,178 cases) to 165% of average (13,431 cases). We observed similarly large increases in Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Providence.

Figure 2. Change in eviction filings relative to historical average from 2022 to 2023

But not all cities saw eviction case loads increase. Indeed, seven of the ETS cities saw reductions. In Dallas, landlords filed nearly 5,000 fewer eviction cases in 2023 than in 2022, a reduction from 106% to 94% of historical average. We also saw large reductions, both in absolute and relative terms, in places like Philadelphia and Hartford, CT.

All told, 17 cities saw more eviction filings than normal in 2023 (i.e., filings above 100% of historical average). Several of these cities saw case numbers that are particularly troubling. In Houston, for example, landlords filed almost 84,000 cases in 2023, 43.8% more than was typical in a pre-pandemic year. Likewise, filings were 56.8% above average in Las Vegas, 30.1% above average in Phoenix, and 29.8% higher than normal in Columbus. Notably, many of these cities saw little year-over-year change, meaning that these elevated filing rates may constitute a stable new normal.

By contrast, only four cities saw eviction filings that were at least 25% below normal, pre-pandemic levels. That group includes New York City, with the nation’s largest population of renters. But even in New York, eviction filings rose significantly over these two years, from 108,278 cases filed in 2022 to 130,988 in 2023 (from 48.1 to 58.0% of historical average).

In line with previous trends, we find that women and Black renters faced a disproportionate share of eviction filings in 2023. In most of the ETS locations, we are able to estimate the likely race/ethnicity and gender of tenants facing eviction (for an explanation of how we do this, see our methods page). Fully 60% of those filed against for eviction last year were women. In Figure 3 we plot the share of defendants listed on eviction filings in 2023 who were Black, Latinx, or White. We compare those numbers to Census Bureau figures on the share of renters in each racial/ethnic group in the same set of places.

Figure 3. Share of renters and eviction filing defendants, by race/ethnicity

The eviction crisis weighs most heavily on Black renters. Despite making up only 28% of renters, half of eviction filings are against Black individuals in these areas. By contrast, all other racial/ethnic groups see an underrepresentation when it comes to eviction filings.

Eviction filings are not always one-time events; a significant share of eviction cases are repeated, serial filings against the same households at the same addresses. That remains true after the pandemic. In most of the ETS sites, we are able to identify these repeated cases and calculate serial eviction filing rates: the share of unique households that were filed against repeatedly within the last two years. In Figure 4 we plot serial eviction filing rates in 2023 for all available cities.

In many places—cities like Philadelphia and Cleveland—serial eviction filings were relatively rare. But in other places they happen with striking regularity. For instance, 51% of households that receive an eviction filing in Greenville, SC have received more than one at the same address. This was true of 48% of households in Charleston, 44% in Las Vegas, and 37% in Fort Worth. Landlords are routinely burdening the courts in these jurisdictions with multiple case filings against the same households.

In many ways, 2023 represented a return to the status quo. Overall, eviction caseloads returned to pre-pandemic levels. Racial and gender disparities in eviction rates—disparities that were at least partly addressed by pandemic-era renter protections like eviction moratoria and emergency rental assistance—were again strikingly large. And landlords continued to turn quickly and often to the courts in many places, using serial eviction filings to facilitate rent collection.

But our analysis also shows that renters’ exposure to eviction risk continues to vary significantly as a function of where they live. This was true prior to the pandemic, and it’s all the more true now. Places like Houston and Phoenix saw far more eviction cases filed in 2023 than they did in a typical year prior to the pandemic, while in South Bend and Philadelphia caseloads shrank. In some places landlords are much more likely to file repeated eviction cases. These patterns profoundly shape the residential stability of low-income renters. Understanding eviction patterns—and the dynamics of rental markets and housing instability more generally—requires close attention to these local variations.

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