
The Eviction Tracking System: Monitor the number of U.S. eviction cases - hhs
https://evictionlab.org/eviction-tracking/
======
hpoe
So I read how they get their data which is from city court systems that allow
their data to be extracted programmatically. Then I wondered why dont we just
put in the effort to standardize on a common data format and start making
government info available across multiple levels of government. I mean most
government forms could be replaced with a pretty simple html form.

Then I realized how many people would fight till their last dying breath to
keep that data from coming to life to prevent the exposure of their crimes.
And I don't just mean high level national officials but the thousands of
county and municipal people all across the country that have their little
practically harmless side graft going on.

~~~
thephyber
> Then I realized how many people would fight till their last dying breath to
> keep that data from coming to life to prevent the exposure of their crimes.

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained
by stupidity"

I find it _far_ more likely that government buracracies like court systems
simply don't spend the money or have the expertise rather than are in a USA-
wide cabal against opening their data (when the data is already available in
small amounts).

~~~
elliekelly
You should go sit through a day in housing court when it opens up again. The
first time I went to housing court was literally life changing. The injustice
was eye opening. It’s probably the single event that switched me from
Republican to Democrat because I spent my whole life thinking “the system” was
fair and reasonable until I saw the system in action.

~~~
throwaway98797
Should contracts be enforceable?

Should we live in a world where people can take other people’s property with
no recourse?

~~~
throwaway_jobs
>Should contracts be enforceable?

Sometimes yes, other times no they should be void or unenforceable. Quick
example: an employee non-compete clause in California (which are illegal in
California but employers include them regularly)

>Should we live in a world where people can take other people’s property with
no recourse?

Like the colonist (and later Americans) took the property and land of native
Americans?

Or like squatting where one party acquires legal title to property from the
own after x years? This is generally legal.

Or like eminent domain where rich people get the local government to take
private property on their behalf?

One of the great ironies the great capitalist Trump has quite the history of
supporting The taking of lands /property to be given to developers, and the
scary socialist Bernie sanders has fought against these acts to uphold Private
property rights.

~~~
pnutjam
In too many small communities, the only people interested in day to day
governing are the ones bending it to their financial interest. Usually
property developers, sometimes people who own a local industry or visible
store front (auto dealers). American's seem to be waking up.

~~~
throwaway_jobs
I like your optimism and I hope true change happens For the better, I’m more
than a little jaded and in my experience things only get worse.

Take “Poletown” where GM got the government to seize 1,500 homes, 144
businesses and 16 churches and bulldoze them to the ground to build a GM
plant.

Ultimately GM provided half the number of promised jobs and ultimately closed
the plant.

I fear what we are seeing now is 20-40M Americans lost their jobs, nearly that
many will become homeless in the near future, and ultimately they will be
swept under the rug (just removed from employment numbers And every other
program like they don’t even exist). Watch unemployment Numbers go back to 5%
or so and the politicians go back to bragging about the economy. Once you have
40M+ homeless there is no possibility for them to organize and have a
voice...they won’t even have the literal energy to survive let alone effect
change, they will be steamrolled just like poletown was and no one will ever
even know not unlike poletown.

------
lerie1982
"get the data", [https://evictionlab.org/eviction-tracking/get-the-
data/](https://evictionlab.org/eviction-tracking/get-the-data/)

~~~
feep
A dataset for NYC evictions.

[https://qri.cloud/xristosk/nyc_evictions_2020](https://qri.cloud/xristosk/nyc_evictions_2020)

disclaimer: I work for qri.io.

------
jimbob45
Anecdote: eviction was never a huge threat against me. I have parents who I
could stay with if things came to that. It was the early termination fees
($3000+ non-negotiable) that caused me to lose the most sleep.

~~~
hash872
I mean, you could easily not pay the 'early termination fee', and dare the
landlord to do something about it. Not advocating for skipping out on debts,
but just from a practical point of view (having worked in the real estate
industry): very unlikely they'd be able to enforce it, and if they did go to
court and you told a judge you didn't have the funds, it would almost
certainly be dismissed.

You could just e-mail the landlord 'sorry, I'm broke and don't have any money
right now, feel free to waste time in court if you'd like'. 80-90% chance
they'd just let the fee go. Then if they did, another 70-80% chance it'd be
dismissed by a judge or magistrate.

People put one-sided things in contracts, but the odds are very high that they
could never actually enforce them

~~~
AmericanChopper
> You could just e-mail the landlord 'sorry, I'm broke and don't have any
> money right now, feel free to waste time in court if you'd like'.

You'd be better off offering to pay some very small amount, pretending as
though you were acting in good faith. Regardless of the merits of the
contract, judges tend not to like 'I dare you to enforce the law' taunts.

~~~
hash872
Sure, yeah, I wouldn't put 'I dare you to enforce' in writing. And paying a
small amount is a good idea.

I just think people on HN being unrealistic about how real estate law actually
works is part of why these comments sections are filled with 'landlords are
evil', left-wing populism. A huge huge number of tenants are going to simply
not pay their landlords in this recession, and in practice the landlord has
zero recourse. Millions of tenants are going to skip out on billions in rent,
and it's not like a judge is going to enforce all these judgments in over-
crowded housing court or small claims court or something. When the courts
reopen, months from now, with a massive backlog.

This is doubly true for blue state judges. If you add up all the court cases
in blue states where the defendant says 'sorry, I lost my job, I can't finish
my lease or pay the termination fee or whatever', their win rate is like
90-95%+

------
klmadfejno
The main page says there's a housing crisis caused by COVID but then every
single city, with one exception, shows a relatively sizeable decrease in
number of filings. Maybe there's a lag in the data, but I don't understand why
they would show the data like this if it didn't remotely correspond with their
thesis.

~~~
thephyber
When I clicked thru from main page to a municipality, I see

> Eviction filings in Boston, MA have fallen sharply since eviction
> proceedings were suspended across Massachusetts on March 17.

I think it's perfectly fine (even more desirable) to show accurate data rather
than only show data which "corresponds with their thesis". It's probably
_more_ valuable to have the data for this lull before the homeless cliff
happens.

~~~
klmadfejno
I mean, yeah, obviously you should show all of the data. But if the data is
that across the board, evictions are down, you shouldn't headline it with "In
the midst of a pandemic, a growing number of families face the threat of
eviction.". The opposite is true.

The point that eviction proceedings are suspended is also totally relevant,
and their thesis in the long term may be accurate. But their way of showing
data here is counterproductive to conveying that understanding. Worse, if we
imagine that the pandemic has had no impact on evictions and that things will
just resume to normal levels once the suspensions are over, the dashboard is
going to flare red and look apocalyptic.

For the record, I do think the pandemic is going to have a fairly severe
impact on housing problems. I just don't think this is a good way to show it.
You need charts over time with well labeled events that are affecting the
data.

------
aww_dang
The intro content suggests that this site may have a political bias. Otherwise
I would find the data interesting. However the map only has data up to 2016.

~~~
mikeyouse
What in the world shows a "political bias" in this paragraph? Caring about
homelessness?

> _The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened America’s housing crisis. The nation’s
> most severe public health emergency in a century may cause large spikes in
> eviction and homelessness. In response, we have created the Eviction
> Tracking System to monitor weekly updates on the number of eviction cases
> being filed across the United States. Scroll down to view full reports on
> the cities in which we are operating, and to learn more about the project._

~~~
II2II
> What in the world shows a "political bias" in this paragraph? Caring about
> homelessness?

They are aligning themselves with one side of an issue. Whether you agree with
them or not, it does demonstrate a bias.

The language used is editorialized. Words like "crisis" or "large spikes"
express an opinion rather than a fact. They could have made quantitative
statements about homelessness, evictions, or the shortage of housing to let
the reader decide whether this is a crisis or what constitutes a large spike.

Even if you agree with their bias, it is important to avoid expressing bias
since it may undermine the very issue that you want to address. For example:
landlords may be unsympathetic to this language, even though it will affect
them negatively.

~~~
mikeyouse
This is the most ridiculous site in the world. An eviction advocacy group
makes a comprehensive site capturing disparate data from all over the country
to understand the depths of a problem and the most pressing concern here is
tone-policing their copy to ensure some false neutrality toward the "pro-
eviction" lobby?

~~~
II2II
It is about remaining neutral so that people with common interests can
collectively work towards a common cause. While the "pro-eviction lobby" is
unlikely to be a part of that cause, many landlords could be. From a business
perspective, lost tenants represent lost revenues as well as increased risk
from new tenants. From a humanitarian perspective, many landlords maintain a
good relationship with their tenants and do not want to see them homeless.

An advocacy group that examines an issue from a singular point-of-view risks
alienating those facing similar issues yet hold other perspectives, thus
shutting down dialogue. It becomes a power struggle, rather than finding
solutions through commonalities and balancing conflicting interests. This is
not to say that non-confrontational approaches are perfect, but they provide a
much more solid foundation for negotiation.

~~~
aww_dang
Agreed. There's also the hypothetical case of a potential entrepreneur
building this data into content, with the purpose of marketing services
towards either party. If things are exaggerated, skewed or misrepresented to
rationalize a policy goal, this could potentially have negative impacts on
further uses of the data.

