Dear John,
With both the state of emergency in Virginia and the CDC Eviction Moratorium set to expire at the end of June, the task of reaching households at-risk of displacement and connecting them to rental assistance and support services takes on renewed urgency. To support this vital work, NVAHA is pleased to announce the launch of our Northern Virginia Eviction Prevention & Rental Assistance Dashboard.
The dashboard tracks eviction filings, case outcomes and disbursement of state Rent Relief Program (RRP) funds at the ZIP code-level, and monitors fluctuations in eviction filings and case outcomes over time as different pandemic-related protections are enacted and expire. The purpose of the dashboard is:
- To help local governments and human service providers conduct more targeted outreach regarding pandemic-related protections and rental assistance resources
- To identify neighborhoods that are not being served through existing outreach efforts
- To evaluate the impact of pandemic-related protections on housing stability in our region
The dashboard is intended to supplement existing data on evictions and allocation of rental assistance that is available at the local level in the City of Alexandria and Arlington and Fairfax Counties, to support outreach in localities without a local tracking system and to facilitate cross-jurisdiction comparison.
In addition to data on evictions and disbursement of RRP funds, the dashboard includes data on select demographic characteristics. While the pandemic has laid bare the impact of eviction as a public health issue, eviction is also a racial equity issue. People of color faced a disproportionate risk of eviction prior to the pandemic, and are more likely to have experienced pandemic-related housing instability due in part to pre-pandemic disparities in income, household savings and housing cost-burden.
In September, a Pew Research Center survey of more than 13,000 U.S. adults found that lower-income adults were more likely to have experienced pandemic-related job loss and to have had difficulty paying their rent or mortgage during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, the majority of low-income households in the D.C.-metro region were already cost-burdened, a known risk-factor for eviction. Areas with a larger share of renter-occupied households also have higher rates of eviction and homelessness.
By incorporating ZIP code-level data on the number of renter-occupied households, median renter household income and the percentage of the population that is people of color, we hope to provide users with additional context and aid in the identification of racial and economic disparities in eviction and allocation of rental assistance in our region.
The dashboard currently includes data on eviction filings and case outcomes from January 2019 – March 2021. Eviction data was provided courtesy of the RVA Eviction Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University, and will be updated on a quarterly basis moving forward.
Data on disbursement of RRP funds was provided by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. While RRP is the largest source of rental assistance funding in Northern Virginia, there are other funding sources, such as non-profit/faith-based assistance and local government assistance programs, that are not represented in the dashboard. Totals include funds received by both tenant and landlord RRP applicants. Mortgage assistance data are not included as the focus of this dashboard is housing stability for renter-occupied households. RRP data are current up to June 2, 2021 and will be updated quarterly, with the exception of data for Fairfax County, which is current as of February 15, 2021 when the County launched its own, locally-run rental assistance program. For more information on the data sources and definitions used in the dashboard see our Technical Appendix.
In the future, we hope to incorporate additional data sources and make continual updates to improve the utility of this resource for local governments, human service providers and housing advocates. If you have questions or suggestions for improving the dashboard please contact NVAHA’s Director of Programs & Community Engagement at [email protected].
