Houston, Texas: How Access to Eviction Filing Data Helped Hold Decision-Makers Accountable

In this mini-chat, Jeff Reichman of January Advisors talks with Jen Rice, City Hall reporter at Houston Public Media, about evictions in Harris County, Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Between September 2020 and April 2021, Jen attended hundreds of eviction court hearings and spoke with dozens of tenants at risk of losing their home in Houston. Despite the existence of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) eviction moratorium—the federal policy intended to keep tenants housed during the pandemic—Jen saw eviction filings moving forward, either because judges were not to upholding the moratorium or because tenants did not declare it in the first place.

What quickly became clear was that the narrative pushed by city officials—that the CDC moratorium was protecting tenants during this time—did not match the reality on the ground. And whether protection was extended hinged on a factor completely outside a tenant’s control: the individual judge presiding over the hearing.

Jen knew that what she was seeing play out in court houses across Houston were not one-off experiences, but a collective failure to protect vulnerable tenants. But how could she rewrite the narrative for the public without detailing each court case and each tenant's individual circumstances?

Jen found her answer through the Harris County Evictions Dashboard, which was created and maintained by January Advisors and provides daily eviction data since the beginning of 2020. This dashboard allowed Jen to see how many evictions were being filed daily, despite the moratorium. This data backed up what tenants were sharing anecdotally—that the CDC moratorium was not only failing to stop eviction filings in Harris County, but that eviction filings were actually higher during the moratorium than before it.

The Harris County Eviction Dashboard presents de-identified data from the Harris County Justice of the Peace Court from January 1, 2020 to present day. Members of the public can see heat maps of the number of evictions filed, as well as case level details (e.g., plaintiff, status of case, claim amount, neighborhood, court), top filers (the number of eviction cases filed by landlord), and details of upcoming cases scheduled for a hearing.

In subsequent reporting about evictions, Jen relied on this data to weave the experiences of tenants with near real-time data on eviction filings to illustrate the scale of the trauma. In particular, there were three things Jen wanted the public to understand about pandemic-era evictions:

1. The CDC moratorium did not stop most evictions in Houston;
2. Individual judges are a major factor in who gets CDC protection; and
3. Houston elected officials made several policy choices to allow pandemic evictions, including setting a grace period with no real enforcement teeth.

Both Jen and Jeff describe Houston as a place with good data and weak renter protections. The ability to share the consequences of the latter is closely tied to the quality and accessibility of the former.

For more information on the Harris County Eviction Dashboard, contact Jeff Reichman at jeff@januaryadvisors.com. To contact Jen about her reporting, email jrice@houstonpublicmedia.org.