Pierce County’s eviction rate among highest in state. Are more aid programs necessary?
Pierce County has one of the highest eviction rates in the state, according to recently released data from the past year. Though the county spends millions of dollars on eviction-prevention programs, thousands of people are in need of assistance.
The Eviction Research Network is a collaborative project through which academic researchers collect and study eviction and housing-market data from states around the country. In October, the network released a report which compared Washington’s eviction data from the past twelve months to previous years. It collected data from every county in the state.
According to the most recent report from the Eviction Research Network, there were 3,561 evictions filed in Pierce County between September 2023 and August 2024. With more than 121,000 rental households in that period of time, Pierce County has the second highest number of rental households in Washington behind King County, which had just over 400,000.
Pierce County has a higher rate of evictions than King County. According to the data from the Eviction Research Network, there were 1.8 evictions in King County for every 100 rental households between September 2023 and August 2024, while Pierce County had 2.9 — the third highest eviction rate of any county in the state.
The Eviction Research Network did a month-by-month comparison between this year and previous years and found that evictions in Pierce County were above the 2019 historical average. On a month-to-month basis, Pierce County filings were mostly 20% to 48% above the 2019 monthly average.
Pierce County’s Human Services department administers an eviction-prevention program. Kari Moore, a spokesperson for Human Services, told The News Tribune the county has served 634 households since the beginning of 2024 and anticipates reaching close to 850 by the end of the year.
Moore said people apply online to receive assistance. She said Pierce County has a lottery on the second Friday of the month where eligible households are chosen for assistance. Those households are then referred to organizations contracted by the county to administer assistance the next week. Landlords are paid directly by the organizations.
She said the department has received $10.3 million in requests through 2024 and $6,691,335 has been paid to cover rent and utilities.
Moore said households not selected are notified and sent additional resources to apply for and they can reapply six months from their last application review.
“Since January, 1,719 individual households (unduplicated) have applied for services, met basic eligibility criteria based on self-report but were not selected into the program,” Moore wrote The News Tribune in an email.
Megan Jackson’s family was one of those households that was denied assistance. She lives in Tacoma with her fiance and two daughters. Her eldest daughter is 12. Jackson told The News Tribune the girl has difficulty expressing herself, and recently she has been having behavioral problems. Their youngest daughter is 3 and also has difficulties with speech.
In September, her family received an eviction notice. Jackson told The News Tribune her family’s financial hardships began when her husband was injured in a collision with an uninsured motorist. He suffered a hip injury which required surgery and made him unable to work his job at Boeing. In April 2024 he returned to work for a few months before being laid off in July.
Her oldest daughter also began to have difficulties that required medical help.
“As a parent it is the hardest thing to not know how to help your child and understand what it is they need or are feeling when they can’t tell you,” Jackson wrote to the county on Nov. 6. “We are working with Seattle Children’s Autism Center to get some help but if you can imagine trying to focus on helping your child while trying to figure out financial hardships that are on the brink of being homeless, the weight is incredibly heavy.”
Jackson has a job at Blue Origin and has been the sole provider for her family. Due to unpaid credit-card debt accrued during a difficult time, her paychecks were garnished, and they fell behind on rent payments.
As of November, Jackson owed more than $9,000 in unpaid rent.
On Oct. 11, Jackson applied for the Pierce County Eviction Prevention Lottery. Three days later, she was notified that she was not selected and that she could reapply in another six months.
“I felt helpless with nothing to lean on,” she told The News Tribune in an interview. “Now I am left wondering what the hell we are going to do.”
Pierce County has a program that works proactively to prevent evictions before they occur. The county has contracted an organization called Housing Connector to administer what is know as the Landlord Liaison Program.
During a Pierce County Council Select Committee on Homelessness meeting on Nov. 13, Nicholas Merriam with Housing Connector gave a presentation on the Landlord Liaison Program.
Merriam said as part of the program his organization negotiates with landlords to increase access to housing for folks who might be considered risky to landlords because of factors like past evictions, debt, low credit score, income and criminal history.
Landlords agree to lower their screening requirements and in return they are provided with insurance by Housing Connector.
“We tell properties if you reduce your screening criteria, you will gain access to these financial benefits,” Merriam told the council.
The benefits to landlords and tenants include up to three months of rental assistance, up to $5,000 in damage mitigation, covering one month of vacancy loses, two years of case management support to tenants, and they provide a single point of contact for landlords and tenants.
Merriam said the benefits are intended to reduce the risks landlords associate with certain tenants as well as to provide housing stability for tenants and business stability for landlords.
“What we often hear from the properties that we have partnerships with is that ‘I came for the financial benefits, I stayed for the stability support,’” he told the council.
Liat Arama is a landlord who manages nearly 150 units in King and Pierce counties. In an interview with The News Tribune, Arama said she has been enrolled in the Landlord Liaison Program in Pierce County for years.
Arama said the program not only lowers the risk she takes as a landlord but also helps provide housing opportunities to folks who otherwise would not have them due to their rental history or income.
“The housing market is very challenging,” she told The News Tribune. “Its very difficult and almost impossible to house these folks.”
Arama said evictions can be extremely costly for landlords in the current regulatory environment as they can often mean a loss of rental income for nearly a year under the current regulations. She said the Landlord Liaison Program “absolutely” works to prevent evictions, and it works proactively to alleviate rental debt before it is compounded.
“I wish all tenants in Washington State were enrolled,” she told The News Tribune. “That should be the standard.”
Since July 1, 2021, Housing Connector’s Landlord Liaison Program has partnered with 444 properties offering more than 10,000 units. Through the program they have housed 675 people at an average cost of $1,941 per household, according to data presented by Merriam.
About 40% of tenants in the Landlord Liaison Program end up using financial assistance, according to Housing Connector, and that assistance prevents tenants from being evicted and a small amount of assistance can prevent landlords from being owed large sums of rent.
Merriam told the council that he feels the work that Housing Connector does with Pierce County’s Landlord Liaison Program is “small,” and his organization has a “deep desire” to expand the program with additional funding from the county.
He said they receive $250,000 a year from the county to administer the Landlord Liaison Program, half of which goes to emergency rental assistance.
This story was originally published December 12, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
