Before eviction moratoriums expire, WA renters and landlords need help

Tim Thomas, research director of the Urban Displacement Project at University of California Berkeley, has studied eviction patterns in King County. He and his colleagues found that the variables predicting high eviction rates are racial diversity, specifically how Black or Latinx a neighborhood is, and how cheap the rent is. “The last few places that are affordable in the Puget Sound region have the highest risk of eviction,” he says. Black households were four times more likely to be evicted than white households, a ratio that rose to seven times for Black women as compared with white women. A 2018 report by the Seattle Women’s Commission and the Housing Justice Project found similar racial disparities in Seattle evictions, often of tenants who owed far less than a single month’s rent.

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