New Report: New Orleans’ Eviction Geography: Results of an Increasingly Precarious Housing Market

New Report: New Orleans’ Eviction Geography: Results of an Increasingly Precarious Housing Market, A report produced by Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative (JPNSI) and Professor Davida Finger, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. Abstract below:

New Orleans’ Eviction Geography: Results of an Increasingly Precarious Market is the first comprehensive report on the escalating eviction crisis in New Orleans, and provides policy recommendations at the state and municipal level to lessen the amount of evictions. Evictions cause lasting damages to individuals and families, and are disproportionately impacting Black New Orleanians.

New Orleans is facing a growing displacement crisis. As the cost of living has increased, low-income families increasingly struggle to find stable, habitable, and affordable housing. Over the last 17 years, when controlling for inflation, rents have risen 49% while incomes have seen an 8% decrease in the same period. Incomes are not increasing at the same rate as housing costs, and rents continue to rise. Many neighborhoods are rapidly changing, racially and economically, and have become prohibitively expensive for the majority of the city’s residents.

 

While some residents might find themselves gradually priced out of a neighborhood, others face a more sudden kind of displacement: eviction. Displacement by eviction causes housing volatility, neighborhood instability, homelessness, financial stress, poverty, emotional distress and loss of hope. The eviction crisis in New Orleans is supported by an arcane legal regime that governs landlord-tenant matters in Louisiana that favor landlords over tenants. This structural arrangement perpetuates economic, social, racial, gender, and political inequality across the state.

The subject of evictions has been an under-analyzed aspect of New Orleans’ deepening housing crisis. Before now, data on evictions in New Orleans, and their impact on individuals and neighborhoods, has never been analyzed locally in a comprehensive way.