Each year, nearly 3 million people are evicted in the U.S. But these are just estimates. Without access to high-quality, comprehensive, and standardized eviction data, we don’t actually know where evictions are concentrated, who is most at risk, and when evictions are most likely to occur. We also can’t track changes over time or understand whether policies designed to help tenants stay in their homes are working as intended.

With no national eviction database on evictions, it is difficult to respond to eviction as the housing crisis it is. To understand why eviction data is so essential, we asked 20 housing leaders, “If you had good eviction data, what would you do with it?”

Their short video responses are shared below. This video campaign builds on our 8 recommendations for building national and local eviction databases, co-developed with several partner organizations.