More than 3.5 million U.S. households are threatened with eviction each year, a poignant illustration of rising housing costs. The causes of eviction can be complex, following a synergy of poverty and low wages, rising rent costs, inflation, and drug and mental health challenges for citizens living paycheck to paycheck. For many individuals, an eviction can be the result of common life occurrences, such as middle-income suburban renters facing an unexpected bill or work hours reduced. Evictions are also seasonal, often peaking in the summer.
Regardless, displacement is traumatic for the individuals and families involved and impacts stability and quality of life at all levels personally and for the community.
Using its expertise in research, data integration, analysis, and visualizations, The Polis Center developed a new statewide tool to help users better understand trends and relationships between evictions and societal factors. The goal is to raise awareness of evictions in Indiana and provide an easy-to-use online resource to empower communities to instill change. The dashboard features many resources for tenants, researchers, and stakeholders. Real stories of people experiencing evictions have been captured to give context to the data. Benefits include:
- Users may explore spatial trends of evictions and foreclosures over time at multiple geographic levels in Indiana.
- Users may examine important associations between socioeconomic variables and evictions data.
- Users have the opportunity to provide an anonymous story of their eviction experience on a qualitative data page