1. Supporting families who have been evicted or are at-risk of eviction in the City of Minneapolis
Brittany Lewis, PhD
Research Associate
Center for Urban and Regional Affairs
University of Minnesota
““We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty. Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord” — Matthew Desmond, "Evicted"

2. In Minneapolis, there are about 3,000 tenant evictions filed annually, which represents a citywide rate of about 3.5%. This figure reflects only those cases officially filed in housing court, a equal or greater number of households likely experience an informal eviction each year. 
Evictions disproportionately impact people living in low income and minority neighborhoods; over 3 years, it is estimated that nearly half of renter households in North Minneapolis experienced an eviction filing. 
Non-Payment of rent accounts for over 90% of eviction filings; typically tenants owe $1,700 (median) to $2,000 (average), or about 1 to 3 months’ rent 
In 2015, just 10 property owners filed over 25% of evictions in Minneapolis; these property owners include both public housing as well as owners with a history of frequent housing code violations.
Half of all cases result in an eviction judgement; and two-thirds of cases result in tenant displacement6 
1 out of 3 tenants do not show up for the first hearing 
Though most cases initially settle, 40% of settlements fail 
FIND FULL REPORT HERE:
Collecting Data on evictions in the City of Minneapolis Research Conducted by the Minneapolis Innovation Team
In July of 2016 the Minneapolis Innovation Team published a report on Evictions in Minneapolis in partnership HOME Line and Housing Link with the hopes of producing data that would assist the City and their community based partners in the process of increasing more rental housing stability and access. This report mapped the geographic distribution by ZIP code of eviction filings, conducted a case file review of a random sampling of eviction cases in 2015, and provided detailed state data extract analysis from 2016.

3. McKnight Foundation-funded Habitability Rights Project enable lawyers and tenant organizers to gather groups of tenants and on their behalf, file affirmative actions known as rent escrow and tenant remedies against landlords that refuse to make repairs.
Legal Aid and the Volunteer Lawyers Network work together to staff the Housing Court Project, which make at least two lawyers available on the same floor of the courthouse where evictions and rent escrow hearings and trials take place. They will draft court pleadings and give advice to tenants to help them prepare for their hearings. The work often focuses on tenants who have hearings on the same day they arrive to meet with the lawyers. Not including the Volunteer Lawyers Network, Legal Aid attorneys helped 437 tenants with motions to expunge previous eviction files from their records in
The Eviction Representation Project provides same-day, in-court representation to the most vulnerable tenants who arrive for eviction hearings. Lawyers in this project represent tenants identified by the lawyers staffing the Housing Court Project, help them negotiate with their landlords and appear on their behalf before the Court. Once representing, the attorney will continue representation throughout the case and through trial. The Project existed for just six months of The work yielded 302 families represented and a 0% eviction rate.
Piloting Legal Support Programs Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid – Housing Division Luke Grundman
In 2016, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid’s Housing Unit and the Volunteer Lawyers Network together represented 3,475 Hennepin County families in housing cases.

4. Of those clients represented only by Legal Aid (2,335)
74% identified as of a race or ethnicity other than non-Hispanic white.
More than half (52%) identified as African American.
68% of represented families had women as their heads-of- household.
More than 80% of represented families had income below the federal poverty guidelines, and more than 97% had income of less than twice the poverty guidelines. 55% consisted of families with at least one child.
Represented clients achieved a positive outcome in 96% of cases, including 566 full-representation cases in which housing was verifiably protected for the long-term.
52 cases protected tenants from discrimination.
228 cases involved full-scale representation in eviction trials or other contested court proceedings.
Attorneys spent a median 21.6 hours per case preparing for eviction trials, a figure that does not include non-attorney staff time spent on a case (paralegals, interpreters, etc.).
Outcomes of Pilot Legal Support Programs Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid – Housing Division Luke Grundman

5. Narrative Report from the Courts
Legal Aid avoided eviction and obtained better housing for a large family.
Two women with a combined total of 10 kids faced an eviction due to alleged failure to pay rent. In fact, their money had gone to a series of medical bills and attendant costs that stemmed from lead poisoning in their home. Legal Aid lawyers represented the clients in court. They helped them assert defenses that stemmed from the landlord’s failure to maintain the property in a habitable condition. After two days of trial, the judge agreed with the Legal Aid lawyers and their clients. The judge refused to grant the landlord an eviction, reduced the client’s rent obligation to $0, and ordered the landlord to make the repairs before he could collect rent again. The landlord immediately paid for all the costs necessary to abate the lead paint hazards and made the property habitable again for the clients.
Narrative Report from the Courts

6. Multiple community and government entities in Minneapolis and Hennepin County have engaged in conversation about how to reduce the number of evictions.  The strategies they have identified include the following:
Developing early interventions to get rent paid on time, 
Enforcing housing codes, 
Reducing eviction as a first response to unpaid rent, 
Improving outcomes for tenants following an eviction, and
Developing policy solutions. 
Preliminary research conducted by the staff of the Office of Housing Stability at Hennepin County has documented the current use of Emergency Assistance and Emergency General Assistance (EA and EGA, respectively).
Hennepin County Staff have begun strategic conversations with advocates and will conduct focus groups with renters in North Minneapolis over the summer of 2017, because it is the portion of the city with the highest concentration of evictions.
Hennepin County Staff is also conducting an “intercept survey” of tenants leaving Housing Court to capture demographics and understand the outcome of the court proceedings.
Post-Evictions Data Report Strategic Plans of Action Hennepin County Office to End Homelessness Lisa Thornquist
There are more than 6000 evictions filed in Hennepin County District Court each year – half in Minneapolis and half in suburban Hennepin. Most of these evictions are for non-payment of rent, with an average of $2000 in rent arrears. Most of the evictions result in a forced move, which destabilizes the family and costs the family more than staying in place. It also adds to the cost of doing business for landlords, requiring them to go to court for an eviction and then re-lease the space, often with some lapse of time with no money being generated by the unit. In addition, the filing of an eviction results in a court record, with the unlawful detainer following the tenant, even if all back rent is repaid and the tenant remains in the unit.
READ SLIDE
This proposal is based on the preliminary information available to staff at the Office of Housing Stability as well as findings of the Evicted study by Matthew Desmond and the local study conducted by the Innovation Team at the City of Minneapolis, led by Zoe Thiel.

7. A Qualitative Approach to Inquiry
The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) will begin to collect qualitative data in the fall of 2017, to further inform the creation of specific City and County policies and practices based on the experiential knowledge shared by the tenants and landlords most affected by evictions in Minneapolis:
Conduct 50 interviews with tenants who have experienced evictions and live in the two zip codes (55411 & 55412) with the largest concentration of evictions in 2015, to identify the issues leading up to housing instability, understand history of tenants housing composition overtime, and determine what economic resources tenants rely on or need.
Conduct 20 interviews with landlords serving residents in the two zip codes where evictions are most prominent in the city to learn about their individual policies surrounding evictions, understand how they determine the cost benefit of evictions and rental ownership in general, and gain a detailed analysis of what steps are taken after an eviction determination is rendered.
] Post-Evictions Data Report Strategic Plans of Action The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) Brittany Lewis, PhD
The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) is currently working in partnership with the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Homeline, The Family Housing Fund, and InquilinXs UnidXs por Justicia to design a collaborative community based research project that will explain “how” and “why” evictions are taking place in the City of Minneapolis from the prospective of both tenants and landlords through a qualitative approach to inquiry.