Where a renter lives in Harris County may play a large role in the likelihood they will face an eviction filing.
A new Kinder Institute analysis shows landlords in several swaths of Harris County were particularly aggressive in seeking to oust tenants through local courts in 2024, with eviction filing rates totaling two to three times the county average. As a result, residents in those communities often faced a greater likelihood of displacement and more difficulty finding shelter in the future.
The analysis, published last month in the Kinder Institute’s 2026 State of Housing in Houston and Harris County report, documents the residence linked to 76,300 legal notices of eviction in 2024.
The eviction filing data produced striking geographic patterns, with above-average rates in Harris County’s northern suburbs, the city of Houston’s south side and portions of Katy. One neighborhood, the 1960 / Cypress Creek North in Spring, saw 28 eviction filings per 100 renters, roughly triple the county average of 9 per 100 renters.
Researchers, however, found the trends harder to connect to demographic or real estate patterns, though one factor — the presence of larger landlords — may help explain some of the differences.
Evictions have wide-ranging effects on households, impacting housing stability, physical and mental health and employment prospects. Residents with an eviction filing on their record are less likely to secure housing in the future, even if the case is resolved in their favor.
Texas consistently ranks among the states with the highest volume of eviction filings, in part because cases move through the court system relatively quickly.
“Filing an eviction is so easy in Houston, and in Texas generally, that the first resort to any dispute for some landlords is to give someone a notice to vacate,” said Andrew Kim, a Kinder Institute research analyst and co-author of the report. “That presents a huge problem, because having an eviction filing on your record is a black mark.”
Reliable local data showing how many filings ultimately resulted in tenants being removed from their homes is not available. The number of filings also doesn’t equal the number of renter households targeted in eviction court, because some landlords file multiple cases in a single year against a tenant.
‘A pretty complicated picture’
To understand local eviction-related patterns, Kinder Institute researchers mapped eviction filings across 144 neighborhoods spanning all of Harris County and sought to identify potential factors contributing to filing rates. The eviction figures came from January Advisors, a national data consulting firm, which compiled the filings from local Justice of the Peace courts.
Across Harris County, many neighborhoods with above-average eviction filing rates were located in suburban communities outside of Beltway 8. Within the city of Houston limits, higher filing rates were primarily seen in three pockets: the south side stretching from Third Ward to Minnetex; the west side near Briar Forest and Westchase; and much of the northeast side.
By contrast, filing rates were lowest on much of the city’s west and north sides, the Pasadena and Clear Lake areas, and the suburban outskirts of the county.
Kim said researchers analyzed several demographic and real estate factors — including income, rental trends, land values and building construction — to find connections with eviction filing rates. The review produced few simple reasons for local trends.
For example, lower- and middle-income neighborhoods were more likely to see higher filing rates, an expected result given that the vast majority of eviction cases stem from allegations of unpaid rent. Areas with a larger share of Black and Latino renters also had more filings per renter.
But several predominantly lower-income and Black or Latino neighborhoods saw relatively few eviction filings. They included Alief, Galena Park, Gulfton, Pecan Park and Sharpstown.
“It’s a pretty complicated picture in the sense that it’s different for different areas,” Kim said. “There’s no single comprehensive reason for why eviction filings might be high in specific areas. We just couldn’t find a succinct tagline.”
The corporate connection
While tenant demographics may not explain eviction trends, landlord characteristics might.
Dana Karni, litigation director for Lone Star Legal Aid, which helps represent tenants in eviction court, said eviction filing rates may be more closely tied to the concentration of larger corporate landlords in a neighborhood.
Corporate entities are often more aggressive in pursuing evictions compared to mom-and-pop operations or individual landlords, which often spend more time hashing out rent disputes with tenants, Karni said.
“If you’ve got a big complex with many, many units and the only thing they’re interested in is the bottom line, they’re more likely to be a high-volume filer,” Karni said. “The larger the complex, the more likely they are to have an eviction process and procedure and efficiency built into that system.”
In Harris County, dozens of apartment complex owners file more than 100 eviction cases each year at a single property, the January Advisors data shows. In recent months, several of the top filers were located in the 1960/Cypress Creek North neighborhood, home to the county’s highest rate of eviction cases.
Because local eviction outcomes are difficult to track, researchers said filings provide one of the clearest windows into where renters face housing instability.
“Regardless of whether you win the case or not, that might follow you forever,” Kim said. “What you see in the filing records is already a bad picture, and it’s probably much worse than what any official records say.
