UGA eviction mapping shows new trends
Evictions are often seen as the fault of bad tenants. However, new data maps from the University of Georgia tell a fuller story of Athens evictions, revealing the landlords of the most evicted areas and giving community members more leverage to advocate for protection.
Prior to this project, the community lacked hard eviction data, making policy changes hard to justify. At the suggestion of the Athens Clarke-County Magistrate Court, the Athens Housing Advocacy Team, or AHAT, reviewed each eviction individually to collect the data in one place.
Students in UGA Associate Professor Jerry Shannon’s Community Geographic Information System class built upon AHAT’s work along with other public data to transform the 2021-2023 numbers into maps. Their project revealed three eviction hotspots spread out across town, located north of Downtown, on the East Side, and off of Atlanta Highway near Epps Bridge.
The team studied income, race, unemployment rate, education levels and housing stress to see if any of these predicted the hotspots. Unexpectedly, a higher Black population was the only factor correlated to a higher eviction rate.
AHAT co-founder and UGA Ph.D. candidate Jess Martinez says that a common misunderstanding is that individuals are to blame for evictions. But, they say, the data doesn't back that up.
“If we look at the hotspots, we can demonstrate that that argument doesn’t stand to what we have with the data. It’s impacting hundreds of people if we’re seeing all of this happen in different parts of the city,” Martinez said.
Now that they knew which areas of Athens to focus on, the team could determine which landlords are evicting the most tenants in order to bring in the right people into discussions about eviction protection.
While some property owners are local, many are based in Atlanta or out of state. For example, the Florida-based Prosperity Capital Partners is the county’s top property owner. It is also the county’s top evictor.
One complicating factor is that sometimes property changes hands quickly. “In one instance, I was looking at the eviction files, no one knew who the owner was — it had changed ownership three times in a year. We see a lot of turnover, a lot of changing of ownership,” Martinez said.
Moving forward, the ACC Geospatial Information Office will take over leadership of the project to utilize UGA’s more complete eviction data. The GIS class presented their findings at the ACC Library this spring in order to reach policy makers and grassroots organizers. Shannon feels these maps offer a unique way to display the need for eviction protection. “I think it’s persuasive. People like maps, people like seeing things like this on a map, and it gives it solidity, that when combined with people’s stories, it makes it all the more real,” Shannon said. He envisions a broader community impact than an academic paper would have.
“They can bring people to the table that might not otherwise show up, and that’s the goal,” Shannon said.
The Eviction Protection Program will relaunch in Athens soon, and the mapping team hopes to use their data to advise the group on how to best allocate their funds.