A Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta report, “Special Briefing: Despite CDC Moratorium, Atlanta-Area Eviction Filings Hit Low-Income, Minority Neighborhoods,” examines eviction filings in Atlanta between April 2020 and April 2021. Despite the CDC eviction moratorium issued in September 2020, eviction filings continued in Atlanta-area “hot spots”—census tracts which have a majority BIPOC population and a median income between 42% and 92% of the area median income (AMI). The study found that fewer evictions were filed during the CARES Act eviction moratorium (March 2020-July 2020) than during the CDC moratorium (September 2020-June 2021), despite broader protections for renters under the second moratorium.
The brief analyzes patterns of eviction filings in five counties in the Atlanta area—Clayton, Cobb, Dekalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett—from the start of the pandemic in early 2020 through April 2021. Fulton county evictions were reported only until September 2020. These five counties account for 63% of the Atlanta metro population and 74% of its occupied rental units. Overall, evictions dropped rapidly from April 2020 until July 2020. In part, this decrease may be due to the CARES Act eviction moratorium, which prohibited evictions from rental units receiving federal support and a Georgia Supreme Court order that temporarily lifted deadlines for tenants to respond to eviction lawsuits. Evictions began picking up in July 2020 before leveling off at around 7,000-8,000 evictions per month in September 2020. Filings remained around this level until April 2021.
Most eviction filings early in the pandemic occurred in hot spots in southern Fulton, southern DeKalb, and Clayton counties. These same hot spots continued to experience high rates of eviction filings until April 2021. Each neighborhood’s racial composition and median income was a strong indicator of pandemic eviction filings. Eviction filings were much higher in census tracts with over 50% Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) population and less than 80% AMI, a trend that existed before the pandemic as well, but has been exacerbated since.
In the census tracts with the highest eviction filing rates, the population was 75% BIPOC, and 9 out of 10 neighborhoods had a median income less than 80% of the area median income. Half had median incomes less than 50% AMI. Additionally, when comparing data from earlier in the pandemic to later, eviction filing rates grew. In one especially hard-hit census tract in Clayton County the rate was 2.5 times higher in April 2021 than in September 2020.
Eviction filings in low-income, predominantly BIPOC neighborhoods were much more prevalent than in higher-income, predominantly white neighborhoods, and these rates have sped up during the pandemic.
Read the brief at: https://bit.ly/3v5I6hS