How Court Eviction Practices Affect Families
Courts in Focus: Eviction cases cause lasting harm—but better policies can help
This is the second in a series of analyses examining courts’ impact on the people they serve.
For millions of Americans, a rented home provides the foundation for building a family, a career, and a community. But over the past two decades, rental costs have outpaced income growth, leaving many renters—especially lower-income families with children—vulnerable to eviction. From 2007 to 2016, roughly 2.7 million households faced eviction filings each year, and more than half of those families included children.
To better understand the scale of the problem nationwide, The Pew Charitable Trusts examined data from the Court Statistics Project, an initiative of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Conference of State Court Administrators, and found that landlord-tenant cases—largely composed of evictions—make up nearly a quarter of civil cases filed in state and local courts. Even if families facing eviction ultimately remain in their homes, the court process can have a profound impact on their long-term stability and well-being. Courts can help address eviction’s cascading consequences by adopting policies and interventions that reduce filings and help landlords receive owed rent while also keeping families housed.
What leads to eviction?
Nonpayment of rent is the most common reason landlords file eviction cases. In many families that experience eviction, wage-earners were employed but faced a job loss or income drop that disrupted their ability to pay their rent.
Even tenants who are employed may struggle financially amid a shrinking supply of affordable apartments and rising construction costs that for decades have driven up rents. Moreover, since the early 2000s, renters’ incomes have trailed the cost of rent. Households are devoting a growing share of their income to rent and utilities, leaving little margin for emergencies; in 2024, half of the lowest-income renters had less than $210 left each month after housing costs.
Black Families Most Likely to Face Eviction
Black households carry the heaviest rent burden of any U.S. racial group. In 2023, 56.2% of Black renter households spent more than 30% of their income on housing. Further, more than a quarter (~27%) of Black renters with children had an eviction filed against them between 2007 and 2016, more than double the rate of other racial and ethnic groups. These patterns reflect structural and historic practices of discrimination in the housing and rental markets as well as in mortgage lending. The 2008 housing market crash sharply reduced Black household wealth, and the COVID-19-driven recession disproportionately increased rent arrears and housing instability among Black renters.
Evictions have severe consequences for families and children
When families face eviction, the effects can be long-lasting. Research links the stress of eviction to mental and physical health conditions including depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure. Children are particularly vulnerable. Those exposed to housing instability as infants are more likely than their peers who were not to report negative health outcomes such as depression and anxiety by age 15.
Evictions also undermine children’s education. Compared with peers who did not experience housing instability, children in Chicago, New York City, and Houston who faced eviction were more likely to change schools and had higher rates of absenteeism, even when an eviction filing did not result in displacement.
The financial consequences of eviction are similarly persistent. Forced moves can disrupt employment and have enduring negative effects on a family’s earnings. In New York City and Cook County, Illinois, an eviction lowered earnings by $323 per quarter in the first year after filing and $613 per quarter the following year. It also reduced credit scores by 16.5 points and limited eligibility for auto loans and leases and revolving credit accounts.
Even when a court doesn’t order a family to move out, an eviction filing can reduce access to stable housing. Depending on the state, eviction cases can stay on a person’s record for up to seven years—even if the case was dismissed or settled—and landlords who use background checks may not distinguish between a filing and a completed eviction.
The court process is commonly used as a rent collection tool
Although many landlords file eviction cases after giving tenants the opportunity to pay outstanding rent and exhausting other options, others engage in “serial filing”—repeated eviction filings, often against the same household—as a means of rent collection rather than a tenant-removal strategy. Serial filing, which can overwhelm court dockets, is especially common in jurisdictions where filing fees are low.
In interviews with researchers, many landlords and property managers in Baltimore, Dallas, and Cleveland revealed that they rely on the recurring threat of eviction to ensure rent payment and avoid removing tenants. And in Washington, D.C., 64% of eviction filings belonged to a series of at least two filings against the same household within six months—yet few cases resulted in formal removal.
Court processes are too quick and costly for many families
Throughout the U.S., courts commonly push through eviction cases quickly, taking little time to review the merits of a case. “I saw sitting in the courtroom … these cases going in three seconds,” a Virginia legal aid attorney told researchers. “The person had barely enough time to get up to the table if they were there.” In Oahu, Hawaii, evictions were found to last, on average, one minute and 15 seconds.
Pressure to move quickly begins well before the court hearing. As of 2021, 33 states required landlords to give tenants just five or fewer days’ notice to pay overdue rent or vacate before the landlord can file an eviction case. These short timelines leave little opportunity for landlords and tenants to reach a solution or to find rental assistance or legal aid, or for the tenant to secure alternative housing and move.
Imbalances in legal representation compound difficulties for tenants. In most cases, landlords have lawyers while tenants do not, making it harder for families to navigate their cases, defend themselves, and assert their rights.
Further, if a renter wishes to appeal an eviction ruling, the appeal typically doesn’t automatically pause the eviction. To stay in their homes as they appeal, families often must pay the court a bond in the amount of all rent allegedly owed, plus future rent—requirements that are out of reach for families behind on rent because of unemployment or other financial shocks. Some states require a bond even if the family has moved out after the eviction judgment but is appealing an order, for example, to pay back rent.
Courts play a central role in supporting all parties
State leaders throughout the country are exploring changes to court administration that can help reduce the volume of eviction cases and minimize their effects, such as:
- Out-of-court resolutions. Facing one of the highest eviction rates in the U.S., the municipal court in Lawrence Township, Indiana, implemented a diversion initiative. With both parties’ consent, cases are paused for 90 days to allow the landlord and tenant time to reach a resolution. If they are successful, the case is dismissed and sealed. Early results are promising: Of 1,100 cases filed over a five-month period in 2023, nearly 90% were resolved without an eviction judgment, a rate consistent with outcomes from diversion programs in 24 other states and localities.
- Higher filing fees. According to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, every $76 increase in filing fees lowers eviction filing rates by 1.71 percentage points and serial filing rates by 3.11 points. In 2018, despite similar levels of rent burden, Alabama—with an average filing fee of $276—had filing rates that were 3.9 times lowerthan in neighboring Mississippi (average fee is $65) and five times lower than in Georgia (average fee is $87).
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Longer notice periods. In most states, before landlords can file an eviction claim, they must notify tenants that the rent is overdue and provide time for payment. The requirement of any notice period for nonpayment of rent is linked to lower eviction filing rates, with the largest reductions observed in jurisdictions that mandate at least eight days' notice. New Jersey, which doesn’t require notice for nonpayment cases, had a filing rate of 16.1% in 2018, more than double the 7.7% filing rate in neighboring Pennsylvania, which requires a 10-day notice.
As of 2021, only seven states and Washington, D.C., require at least two weeks’ notice. More research is needed to determine the length of notice periods that most effectively balance flexibility for tenants with rent recovery for landlords, but early findings suggest that many tenants resume paying rent after falling behind. - Resources for tenants: In 2019, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued an order to create the Charleston Housing Court Pilot Project. The project establishes a single docket for housing cases, which allows legal aid and other resources to be present on days when eviction cases are heard and to help tenants navigate the court process. In its first year, the project helped avoid evictions in 74% of hearings. In 2023, the state Supreme Court authorized the project’s expansion to all counties.
- Manageable bond requirements. Most states require tenants to pay a bond to appeal an eviction judgment. The American Bar Association cautions against “unreasonable bond requirements,” proposing that tenants pay the court one month’s rent—but not back rent—if they remain in their rental home during the appeals process, and no amount if they move out.
- Sealed or expunged eviction records. As of 2025, 21 states had active eviction sealing or expungement laws, which typically apply after an established amount of time and when certain conditions are met following an eviction judgment or case dismissal. The NCSC notes that sealing court records can prevent dismissed or resolved cases from becoming long-term barriers to housing for families.
Although courts cannot resolve the underlying issues affecting tenants’ ability to pay rent, they can ensure that legal processes do not further burden families or contribute to evictions that might otherwise be avoided. By implementing policies that support resolutions between landlords and tenants, and by minimizing the effects of an eviction record, courts can play a vital role in promoting the well-being of families whose cases come before them.
Darcy White is a senior officer and Casey Chiappetta is an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ courts and communities project.
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