Housing inequalities: Eviction patterns in Salt Lake County, Utah

• Published in: Cities Vol. 104; p. 102804
• Main Authors: Medina, Richard M., Byrne, Kara, Brewer, Simon, Nicolosi, Emily A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2020; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Displaced persons; Ethnicity; Evictions; Geography; Housing; Inequality; Insecurity; Insight; Involuntary; Minority groups; Race; Relocation; Residents; Salt; Security; Spatial analysis; Suffering; Urban areas; Vulnerability; United States > US; Utah
• ISSN: 0264-2751; 1873-6084
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2020.102804

Housing insecurity affects millions of Americans. Many cases in which individuals or families lack secure housing are the result of involuntary residential displacement, which often comes in the form of eviction and eviction threat from rental residences. This study takes a spatial analysis approach to understand patterns of evictions filed in Salt Lake County, Utah at the block group level. Modeling the geography of housing security attributes in urban areas is key to identifying inequality issues in potentially segregated regions. Two regression models are constructed that provide insight into inequalities based on race/ethnicity and socioeconomic vulnerability. The models show that there are clear inequalities in Salt Lake County, whereby those living in block groups of minority populations are affected by eviction at a substantially higher rate than those living in majority White population block groups. There is also a higher likelihood of threat of eviction if residents are already economically stressed. The implications of these findings are not limited to individual or family suffering, but also have negative community and larger social effects. Potential pathways to alleviating these issues are discussed in the conclusions section. •Spatial analysis and geostatistics were applied to evictions filed data and socioeconomic variables for Salt Lake County, UT•Cartographic and geovisualization techniques were applied to show patterns of eviction threat•Spatial patterns of filed evictions suggest inequities exist for those in unrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups.