DC Evictions Surge to Record Levels

With housing assistance drying up and wages remaining stagnant, Washington, D.C. renters are being evicted at record rates, report James Jarvis and Taylor Nichols in The 51st.

“Last year, completed evictions in the District rose to record levels, with 1,869 households removed from their homes under a court order. That rise marked the largest increase since the year before the pandemic, according to new data from the Office of the Tenant Advocate obtained and analyzed by Street Sense, The 51st, and American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop.” In the first half of 2025, 1,477 evictions had already been completed with three months left in the fiscal year.

Experts say the rise in eviction is the result of a combination of factors including reduced government assistance, a rollback in tenant protection laws, the end of the pandemic-era eviction moratorium, and rising housing costs. Evictions are also concentrated in majority-Black wards, and a Brookings Institution study found that “Black renters were nearly twice as likely to spend over 30% of their income on housing.”

According to the article, the city recently reduced emergency rent assistance and rolled back protections that required judges to pause eviction cases with open assistance applications. The recently passed RENTAL Act also shortens the notice landlords must give tenants, removes transparency requirements, and gives judges greater discretion over cases.