Study: Evictions Worse Than Feared in Philadelphia

"Like pretty much every other city in America, Philadelphia suffers an eviction problem," writes Jake Blumgart.

According to new research from The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), "the scale of the city’s eviction crisis is greater than previously suspected," however.

Blumgart interview two of the new study's authors, Ira Goldstein and Al Parker, who have spent years measuring foreclosures as a result of the housing downtown of the Great Recession. "Goldstein and Parker anticipated roughly similar findings about eviction among renter households," explains Blumgart. "Instead they found Philadelphia’s eviction rate never fell below 7 percent in the six years of study—2010 to 2015—and which greatly outstripped the foreclosure rate, which hovers between 2.4 and 1.5 percent."

The study also found geographical and demographic disparities in the eviction rates around the city. For instance, "Philadelphia’s black neighborhoods are hit hardest by the eviction epidemic. In 2015 census tracts that were at least 80 percent had eviction rates of 10.2 percent, whereas those which were less than 10 percent black saw eviction rates of 3.3 percent," writes Blumgart.