Nearly every city in the U.S. is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. Increases in rent costs have been outpacing increases in income for years, and the number of rent-burdened households (spending more than 30% of their income on rent) has reached record highs.
The impact of this affordability crisis on evictions is underestimated because of an often-invisible problem: informal evictions. Beyond filing for formal evictions, landlords can “informally” coerce or force tenants to vacate homes without going through the court system. For example, raising rent by exorbitant amounts—or simply threatening to do so—often effectively forces tenants out of their homes.
Wynston Cornelius III of Taylors, South Carolina, moved into his current apartment in 2019 with a monthly rent of $731. Today, he pays $1,081 per month, an increase of nearly 50 percent. Mr. Cornelius is struggling to afford these dramatic increases, and with no guarantee his rent won’t continue to rise, he is afraid he’ll be forced to leave his home.
Mr. Cornelius is not alone.
While roughly 3-4 million eviction cases are typically filed in a year, we analyzed U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey data revealing a more harrowing statistic underlying the housing crisis: more than 14 million tenants report feeling pressured to move because of a rent increase.
Since there are no official records of informal evictions, the scope of this problem is difficult to measure. Estimates suggest that forced moves due to informal evictions are more than five times as common as forced moves due to formal evictions. Our analysis of recent Census data provides additional insight, revealing the millions of tenants who may be at risk of informal evictions due to rent increases.
Race-based housing discrimination remains persistent, and evidence shows that formal evictions disproportionately impact Black tenant households and neighborhoods with higher shares of Black tenants. It’s likely that informal evictions also weigh more heavily on Black communities. Black households face the highest risk of being severely rent-burdened (spending more than 50% of their income on housing), and the racial gap in cost burdens is increasing.
Our analysis also revealed disparities across race and ethnicity. Black, Hispanic, and Asian tenants are more likely than white tenants to report feeling pressured to move due to a rent increase.
The negative outcomes associated with displacement extend far beyond housing to job loss, disruptions to children’s education, neighborhood segregation, and depressed political participation. Tenants who experience forced moves also tend to end up in neighborhoods with higher poverty and crime rates. This trend is stronger for Black tenants than white tenants.
Because many majority-Black neighborhoods across the country are most impacted by increasing unaffordability, rent exploitation, and subsequent displacement of existing residents, the concerning statistics around informal evictions highlight a clear need for swift and effective solutions.
After years of tenant organizing, the federal government was beginning to recognize the need for rent regulation. In July 2024, President Biden called upon Congress to pass a law requiring corporate landlords to cap rent increases at 5% or risk losing federal tax breaks. Additionally, starting in February 2025, the Federal Housing Finance Agency will require 30-day notice before rent increases and a five-day grace period for late rent payments. These were important first steps in providing tenants with essential protection from exorbitant rent increases, but it is yet to be seen whether and through what strategies the Trump Administration will follow through on campaign promises to address the affordable housing crisis.
Therefore, local and state governments have a greater responsibility to regulate rent increases and increase transparency of the rental market. This includes creating public dashboards to track eviction filings and increasing property owner transparency such as by requiring disclosure of LLC members and managers involved in the real estate market. We currently know too little about who is at high risk of formal and informal evictions and whether tenants are accessing the protections to which they are entitled.
Rent regulation and rental market transparency measures should be used to monitor and curb rent increases, remedy displacement, and keep tenants housed as new housing is built to address the housing shortage. We expect that efforts to monitor and regulate rent increases will especially benefit tenants of color who report higher rates of pressure to vacate due to rent increases. These protections can work in tandem with other protections that are growing in popularity like good cause eviction and right to counsel laws.
There are millions of rent-burdened tenants like Mr. Cornelius all over the country – the scope and severity of this crisis demands urgent and multi-pronged action.