Eviction Prevalence and Spatial Variation Within the Houston Independent School District

student walking through school library

This research brief examines the distribution of eviction filings across the Houston Independent School District (HISD) in 2017 and 2018.

Residential mobility affects children’s education, generally for the worse. Moving can adversely affect standardized test performance, academic achievement growth, and students’ social ties.

This research brief authored by Lavar Edmonds, Peter Hepburn, Olivia Jin, and Matthew Desmond with The Eviction Lab, a HERC external partner, examines the distribution of eviction filings across the Houston Independent School District (HISD) in 2017 and 2018. The analysis aims to inform HISD of hot spots within the district: school zones in which students may be at particularly high risk of forced mobility. We find that eviction is a common occurrence throughout HISD, though a few zones were especially hard hit.

Photo: Bantersnaps, Unsplash

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Before the pandemic hit in March 2020, Faith—a single mother with two children, one in third grade and one in fifth grade—worked at a sports stadium in Houston. Her focus at the time was “paying for a room and trying to pay for child care,” she stated during an interview. But after the pandemic began, the stadium canceled games and Faith found herself out of work. Not long afterward, she and her children were evicted.

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