As Rents Increase Many End Up On the Street

Housing affordability is something that the industry is challenged to address. And, in the meantime, many residents who can't afford rising rents are being evicted. What protection do they have?

During the housing crisis and Great Recession a decade ago, millions of Americans were evicted from their homes for being unable to pay their mortgages. Now, many housing experts say America is on the verge of a new eviction crisis, and this time, it's affecting renters.

“We have had basically a lot of demand for rental, and tight credit markets have pushed up that demand by people who would normally own homes,” says Dan Immergluck, an urban studies professor at Georgia State University.

The 2008 fiscal collapse reshaped the housing market, prompting greater scrutiny of banks' lending practices and keeping more people from purchasing a home. That's placed more pressure on renters, especially low-income renters, according to the 2017 State of the Nation’s Housing report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Rental vacancy rates are at historic lows, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Rents are rising, but incomes generally are not. Given that reality, say Immergluck and others, it's only reasonable to expect that evictions are on the rise.

HIstorically there have been no reliable national statistics on evictions. Those researching evictions have relied on their own local field studies or court records to analyze the problem at a city or regional level. The U.S. Census Bureau, for example, only began tracking eviction data last year. But the indicators don't look good.

Apartment List, an online rental property search firm that also collects data on the rental market, recently published a report detailing what many housing experts say are troubling warning signs in the rental sector.