COVID-19 EVICTIONS
In response to the Coronavirus pandemic and tenant demands, the 16th Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri issued an eviction moratorium in March. That moratorium expired on May 31, and the Court failed to extend it, even as unemployment remained high and COVID-19 spread across the state. Since June, Jackson County has heard evictions both in-person and by remote teleconference hearings. On September 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a nationwide moratorium on evictions for rent nonpayment. The order went into effect on Friday September 4.
This report, published on October 1, 2020, is based on eviction filings data drawn from county court electronic records and studies evictions in Jackson County since June, including a special focus on September, focusing on the impact of the CDC moratorium. READ THE REPORT HERE.
THE KANSAS CITY CASE
Kansas City presents an urgent opportunity for deeper investigation—and for intervention. In the past year, our team has convened conversations about housing justice among local service providers, organizers, policymakers, academics, and reporters.
Each year, roughly 9,000 evictions are filed in Jackson County. That number only represents a fraction of total forced moves number is only a fraction of the total forced moves. Many more evictions occur informally, outside of the court system, and with no data to represent them. We presented a summary of our research and findings to the Kansas City City Council in November 2017. Watch a recording of our presentation:
EVICTION IN 2017
Kansas City Eviction Project has compiled a dataset of Jackson County, Missouri eviction filings, spanning nearly 20 years, drawn from county court electronic records. We recently added 2017 eviction filings to our dataset. Read our report on Evictions in 2017, based on that data.
EVICTION IN THE COURTS
While eviction suits are commonplace in the Jackson County civil court system, to our knowledge there has never been a comprehensive study of the eviction process and the outcomes of cases. We set out to rectify this by collecting a dataset of eviction filings and docket records in Jackson County from Missouri’s CaseNet website. We compiled a dataset of 106,000 records, or all the cases filed in Jackson County from 2006-2016. With this dataset, we can provide a rich picture of how cases are disposed, the rates of representation for landlords and tenants, the timeline of the eviction process, and the type of judgments entered against tenants. Read our preliminary findings in our Eviction in the Courts fact sheet.
EVICTION IN THE SCHOOLS
Eviction is more than a forced move. It impacts physical and mental health, access to schools and transportation, people’s’ ability to keep their jobs, and much more. Eviction is both a cause and a condition of poverty. Insecure housing is particularly disruptive for kids, especially when they have to change schools many times over. Research has shown that student mobility, or the movement of students between schools within or between school years, is associated with lower achievement. We believe that it is likely that physical mobility, in part caused by formal and informal evictions, contributes to student mobility, and therefore has important implications for student outcomes. Read our preliminary findings in our Eviction in the Schools fact sheet.