New Housing Data Available for Maryland: 

MORE EVICTION DATA AVAILABLE FOR STATE OF MARYLAND

Maryland released a new dashboard of Eviction Data in May 2023. This is in response to a 2022 Maryland General Assembly law requiring the District Court of Maryland to collect and report eviction case data and requiring the Department of Housing and Community Development to publish a dashboard for public viewing and analysis and to publish an annual eviction report. The District Court began collecting the eviction case data required under the law on January 1, 2023, and the public dashboard launched in May 2023.

Contents of the Dashboard - 

The dashboard contains multiple pages with: (1) Statewide Eviction Summary, and (2) Eviction Data by Case Type. DHCD is developing new features for the dashboard that will offer additional analysis tools, including mapping and summary data for all landlord-tenant cases.

Court Data Collection Process -

• Sheriff's offices collect a few basic data points on the evictions they conduct. Each sheriff uses a different  tool or process to track this data.
• Data is provided by the sheriff's office monthly to the District Court clerk's office on the evictions they conducted.
• The District Court clerks enter the data into the Maryland Electronic Court (MDEC) data system.
• Judiciary staff compile data using the MDEC monthly.

Eviction Data Not Included - 

Not all evictions conducted in January through March 2023 may be reflected in the data as of publishing, as the new data collection and reporting process is continuing to be implemented and refined. The data provided by the District Courts for this dashboard only includes cases where the tenant was forcibly evicted by the sheriff’s office under a legal warrant of restitution. Court data does not include all judgments of possession, which deemed the tenant no longer had a right to the property. Additionally, court data does not include all tenants with orders of warrants of restitution.

On average, there are typically between 10,000-12,000 warrants of restitution ordered in a month. Of those, there are approximately 1,000-2,000 evictions conducted by the sheriff, which is the data included in this dashboard. As a result, this dashboard does not include:

• Cases where a tenant moved out prior to a warrant of restitution being ordered by the court or moved out prior to the sheriff conducting an eviction
• Cases where a warrant of restitution was ordered but the tenant legally “paid to stay” under right of redemption
• Cases where a tenant was illegally evicted through lockout, turnoff of utilities, or other measures intended to force a tenant to leave the unit prior to the sheriff conducting an eviction

Dashboard viewers should not compare year-over-year trends for evictions using this dashboard, as the District Court did not begin collecting and reporting eviction case data until January 2023.

Eviction Case Types - 

• Tenant Holding Over - A landlord files this when they allege the tenant refuses to leave the property after the lease term has expired. The landlord can use this to seek eviction and possibly monetary damages for rent owed.
• Breach of Lease - A landlord files this when they believe the tenant has violated the lease. The landlord can use this action to seek eviction.
• Failure to Pay Rent - A landlord files this when they believe the tenant owes back rent. The landlord can use this to seek eviction and possibly monetary damages for rent owed.
• Wrongful Detainer - A property owner or other lawful occupant uses this action to seek eviction when someone who is not a lawful occupant of the property refuses to leave.

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Sources: 

MD Eviction Dashboard website.

https://www.msba.org/a2jcs-housing-data-dashboard/.

National, State, and Baltimore Evictions

Evictions Rise Above Pre-Pandemic Levels

The study by the Princeton University's Eviction Lab has found that the rate of eviction filings has returned or exceeded pre-pandemic levels in many U.S. cities recently, stimulated by the historically high cost of housing and other basic necessities. The Lab's aims to fill the "information hole in the center of the evictions crisis" by collecting data from court filings and other sources.

The Lab's estimated national number of evictions for 2018 was 3,656,427.8 filings affecting an estimated 46,902,048 households, with a rate of 0.078. An estimated 2,734,662.8 households were threatened with eviction. For Baltimore, there were 52,200 Baltimore households threatened by eviction, with a 36.6% threatened rate compared to the national 7.8%. According to the Lab for 2018, Baltimore had a rate of 92.3 evictions filed for every 100 residents, with 132,000 evictions filed that year. The is extremely high, however, but because of the way Maryland records eviction notices, it has a much higher filing rate than elsewhere, but not necessarily more evictions. In Maryland, the eviction process starts with an eviction filed in court rather than most other states filing an out-of- court notice delivered to a tenant. Many landlords file against their tenants every month, resulting in a very high case volume. Here, the number of filings is inflated because of unique court procedures, resulting in a high rate.

During the recent - and continuing - COVID pandemic, widespread official local and national eviction moratoriums helped keep many families in their homes. Now, however, those moratoriums have expired in most areas, and many are faced with the threat of displacement. This is particularly bad now because the high rent costs have renters spending a historic percentage of their paychecks on monthly housing bills.

The study found that the eviction crisis tends to disproportionately affect minority groups — particularly Black women. In the Twin Cities, for example, a weekly average of around 300 evictions have been filed over the last four weeks. This is compared to 20 per week during the moratoriums.

Philadelphia, Cleveland, and some others have recently started or expanded programs to help tenants access financial relief, stay in their homes during eviction disputes, or mediate tenant-landlord disputes. Some other recently-enacted "good cause" bills restrict evictions to cases where tenants violate their lease agreements, as well as limit major rent increases.

It is important to note that the Eviction Lab's 34-city data set does not include illegal evictions or cases where renters are forced out primarily because of  large rent hikes. However, the Eviction Lab's data set is the nearest equivalent to a nationwide evictions database. It contains a newly updated map of all 50 U.S. states & D.C., with the ability to search for an individual "county, compare data across regions, interact with demographic characteristics, and create local reports." Recently added features also include data from 2000 to 2018, estimated data for every county in all states & D.C., and the new variable of households threatened with eviction.

While the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is working on new data-collection efforts, there is currently no government national database with full coverage. As a result, the available data always understates the eviction problem and makes policy development more difficult.

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Read the March 16, 2023 AXIOS article.