Evicted in Brooklyn

Project motivation

Evictions represent a major source of housing instability in the United States, especially in vulnerable communities. Eviction has now grown to what many consider “epidemic” proportions, with over 450,000 evictions filed in New York City between 2013 and 2015.

Entire police units, moving companies, and economic infrastructures have been built in response to this phenomenon, as reported by the New Yorker. What factors put individuals, communities, and populations most at-risk for eviction? Who bears the cumulative social and economic consequences of a practice now accepted as commonplace, justified, and even beneficial?

What you’ll find here

We used data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University to explore patterns in evictions and eviction filings across Brooklyn.

In the Exploratory Analyses tab, you can observe:

How eviction rates have changed over time by census tract (2000-2016)
Spatial patterns in the discrepancy between eviction filings and evictions at the neighborhood level; whether neighborhoods with high eviction rates and high filings-evictions discrepancies exhibit other markers of disadvantage
How the geographic distribution of eviction rates in Brooklyn correlates to other census tract characteristics such as language ability, racial composition, rent burden, and population density

In the Model Building tab, we propose a model to predict eviction rates in Brooklyn based on historical data. Head to our Prediction Tool to try it for yourself!

Our final project report can be found here. A brief screencast of our project can be found here.