Baltimore Rent Eviction Crisis: City Overrun By Corrupt Landlords, Study Finds

The Charm City's eviction rate emerged from a study by the local Public Justice Center and the Right for Housing Alliance. Among them, 78 percent reported having one or more health or safety threats existing in their homes at the time of their eviction hearing.

News Story (Maryland)

Aaron Morrison
International Business Times (IB Times)
December 7, 2015
READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Tags: Housing: Eviction, Rent Court, Research/Data

Organizations mentioned/involved: Public Justice Center (PJC)

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DETAILS

“Baltimore needs to answer its rent eviction crisis, and change to the Rent Court system should be a major component of that answer,” the authors stated in their report. “The court is undeniably overrun by the pressure to collect for landlords,” added the authors, who include Dan Pascuiti of the Johns Hopkins University and Michele Cotton of the University of Baltimore. “The resulting 6,000 to 7,000 rent evictions reflect our leaders’ inattention to the state of the court system and the magnitude of crisis.”

Most of those evicted are black women with less than $2,000 per month in income, and many are without public housing assistance, according to the report. But the speed of the Rent Court proceedings, typically scheduled 5 to 10 days after a landlord files a nonpayment complaint, leaves little or no time for tenants to mount a legal defense, the authors stated.