In June 2021 the Minnesota Legislature passed a temporary law that slowly ended or “phased out” the statewide COVID-19 Eviction Moratorium restrictions that had been in place since March of 2020. (For more information on the mortoria and the phase out see HOME Line’s previous COVID-19/Eviction Moratorium webinar recordings). The last phase out restriction expired on May 31, 2022, meaning that starting on Jun 1, 2022 landlords could file an eviction action for any of the same legal reasons they might have had pre-pandemic.
HOME Line began tracking the number of and the reasons why evictions were filed in June of 2021 as an expansion of our Eviction Prevention Project. This allowed us to monitor in almost real time how effective the restrictions were by how much the eviction rate increased immediately after those restrictions were lifted. In June of 2021 there were 151 evictions filed across the state and the numbers steadily increased until there were 2,574 in June of 2022.
*(see footnote)
To put some of this in perspective, In 2019 there were 15,519 total evictions filed across Minnesota, which averages out to about 1,293 evictions filed every month. Filing rates were well below that in 2021 but swiftly rose to meet, and exceed them. In June 2022 we saw nearly double the average monthly eviction filing rate compared to 2019.
Historically, nonpayment of rent has been the most common reason a landlord provides for filing an eviction, but landlords were prevented from using that reason when the Eviction Moratorium was in place, and through early portions of the phase out law. After October 12, 2021 landlords could file evictions for nonpayment of rent so long as the tenant did not have a pending application with a qualifying rental assistance program such as RentHelpMN. The impact of that restriction is illustrated by the blue line on the chart below which shows the rate of nonpayment of rent evictions and demonstrates the significant increase from June of 2021 to June of 2022 of nonpayment of rent evictions.
A couple of conclusions can reasonably be drawn from this data; 1) the phaseout process was effective at controlling the rate of eviction filings and 2) renters are in even more dire situations now than they were before the pandemic. It should also be noted that while the eviction filing rates in 2019 were lower than previous years, they are still not what we should aspire to. RentHelpMN stopped taking new application in late January 2022 and the rate of eviction filings for nonpayment of rent rose sharply after that point, with the most dramatic increase from May to June after the final “Phaseout” restriction expired. Even more frustrating is that many of the tenants who have evictions filed against them still have pending applications for rental assistance that could potentially pay their arrears and maintain their housing. This is why Minnesota should consider adopting a permanent restriction on filing evictions when the tenant has a pending rental assistance application, such as what Representative Michael Howard proposed during the most recent Legislative session.
*Notes on our data: For the most part, the eviction filing data was collected directly from online court search tools for each county in the state on a daily basis during this time period. Some of the cases collected have been dismissed and/or expunged at some point since we collected the data. We respect the critical need to maintain privacy for the parties impacted by these cases, so we do not report anything more than aggregate numbers. Our goal is to accurately report on statewide, aggregate eviction filing rates at the time they were filed, as each case can have an immediate impact on a renter household as soon as it is filed. As a result, these numbers do not match other eviction tracking services such as Eviction Lab, but are an accurate report about actual eviction filing rates during this time.
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