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Visit the Virginia Evictors Catalog

November 10, 2022

Press Contacts:
Sarah Medley, The Equity Center, University of Virginia, smedley@virginia.edu

Kathryn Howell, RVA Eviction Lab, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, klhowell@vcu.edu

Who is Filing Evictions in Virginia?

The social cost of housing instability is enormous. It affects the physical health, mental well-being, employment, and educational attainment of individuals and families, with people of color being disproportionately affected. It threatens the security of entire communities and burdens already limited social safety nets. Yet research demonstrates that housing instability is rooted not in individual or community failures, but in policies of exclusion, displacement, disinvestment, and discrimination. This is illustrated clearly in Virginia, where lax tenant protections paired with high rates of evictions make the state home to 5 of the 10 cities with the highest rates of eviction nationwide. The RVA Eviction Lab, part of the L. Douglas Wilder School for Government and Public Affairs at VCU, and the UVA Equity Center have partnered to build tools and metrics to track and ultimately redress unjust eviction processes in the Commonwealth.

On Thursday, November 10th the RVA Eviction Lab and the UVA Equity Center are launching the first tool, the Virginia Evictors Catalog, a database that catalogs property owner plaintiffs who have filed tenant evictions across the Commonwealth. It compiles publicly available data from Virginia’s General District Courts to reflect the names of the plaintiffs filing eviction cases, the jurisdiction that they filed in, the number of cases they’ve filed, and the number of eviction judgments resulting from those filings. The database is intended to aid organizers, policy makers, policy advocates, and service providers by providing insight into who is responsible for the highest number of court-based evictions and eviction filings, and where they are happening.

“Housing attorneys and organizers know that eviction in Virginia is a systemic crisis,” says Victoria Horrock, Senior Supervising Attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center. “With data from the Virginia Evictors Catalog we are able to target our outreach, organizing, and representation efforts toward the most at risk tenant communities.  For example, we can use this data to provide tenant rights information to tenants in certain apartment complexes and more efficiently represent tenants who have common legal issues in their cases.”

The Virginia Evictors Catalog is part of the Virginia Housing Justice Atlas project, a combined effort between the RVA Eviction Lab and the University of Virginia Equity Center. The Housing Justice Atlas is being steered by an advisory committee made up of representatives from housing justice organizations in the Richmond and Charlottesville areas.

“This project is part of our ongoing work to respond to community needs for information that can prevent housing instability in the Commonwealth,” says RVA Eviction Lab Co-Director, Kathryn Howell. “This data tool is something our community partners have needed to conduct meaningful outreach, target resources and understand the potential for change,” she adds, emphasizing the demand for such resources.

Advisory Committee members include the Virginia Poverty Law Center, Housing Opportunities Made Equal, the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights, Piedmont Housing Alliance, Cultivate Charlottesville, Public Housing Association of Residents, Charlottesville DSA, Richmond Tenants Union, Advocates for Richmond Youth, Virginia Community Voice, and the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

“The Equity Center and RVA Eviction Lab are leveraging university resources to aid in the redress of historic inequities.” says Equity Center Executive Director Ben Allen. “This is all publicly available information, but the process to download and review filings from the Virginia courts system is burdensome. By compiling and centralizing this information into an interactive database, we will arm housing justice advocates with data and empower them to serve communities most at risk of unjust eviction practices.”

The Virginia Evictors Catalog is now live on the Equity Center and RVA Eviction Lab Websites. An FAQ and tutorial about using the tool will be coming soon. Explore the catalog on the RVA Eviction Lab website here

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Information for press:

An interview with Michele Claibourn, UVA Equity Center Director of Equitable Data, can be scheduled by contacting Sarah Medley at smedley@virginia.edu. An interview with Kathryn Howell or Ben Teresa, co-directors of the RVA Eviction Lab and professors of Urban Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University, can be scheduled by contacting either at klhowell@vcu.edu or bfteresa@vcu.edu.

About the RVA Eviction Lab:

Created in August, 2018, the RVA Eviction Lab in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at VCU has a primary mission of collecting, analyzing and disseminating data and research that will:

• Inform policy-making that will support stable housing for low- and moderate-income households;
• Facilitate shared knowledge production about community needs and opportunities; and
• Support efforts of communities most impacted by housing instability to research and advocate for themselves.

We use two primary approaches to advance these goals. First, we provide data analysis and written reports to decision-makers, policy advocates and government agency staff about eviction-related trends, policies and structural bases. Second, we engage with community-based organizations to provide community-relevant research and data that can be used for knowledge-building and action.

https://rvaevictionlab.org/

About the Equity Center:

Founded in 2019, the Center for the Redress of Inequity through Community-Engaged Scholarship (aka, the Equity Center) grows out of many years of social justice advocacy and groundbreaking work by individuals and organizations who have long called on the University of Virginia to address racism and inequity. We seek to advance a transformative approach to UVA’s research mission and to reform institutional values, pedagogy, and operations—in doing so, we will be a model for other universities seeking to promote equity and justice. Our vision is for universities to serve their local communities by providing resources to redress poverty and racial inequality, and by equipping students to build a just society.

617 West Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Email: theequitycenter@virginia.edu
https://virginiaequitycenter.org