Nationally, eviction cases are disproportionately filed against Black and Latine renters (Graetz et al., 2023; Hepburn et al., 2020). The high rate at which evictions are filed against renters of color is only one of the many forms of systemic racism people of color face in the housing system (Solomon et al., 2019). Racism is also embedded in the civil legal system that processes eviction cases (Brito et al., n.d.). Our own research shows that Black and Latine renters in Oregon face discrimination and additional hardships navigating the eviction process. To analyze the rates of racial disparities in eviction cases filed in Oregon, we have partnered with the Eviction Research Network (ERN) research team at UC Berkeley. 

Data about tenants' race and ethnicity are not included in court records. Therefore, the Eviction Research Network team uses statistical methods to estimate race and ethnicity, assigning individual tenants a race based on their last name and the racial composition of where they live. This is an imputation method called fully Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (fBISG), and it is commonly used in research about race and evictions (including the research cited above). It is important to know that this statistical method under-estimates how many people are Black and over-estimates individuals as white—meaning the disparity rates presented on this page are likely an undercount of the evictions filed against Black renters in Oregon. To learn more, visit the Eviction Research Network’s Methodology page. 

This analysis shows that one-in-eleven Black households and one-in-nineteen Latine households in Oregon received an eviction filing between April of 2023 and March of 2024, compared with one-in-twenty-six white households during the same time period. In March of 2024, Black renters in Oregon were more than twice as likely to have an eviction filed against them than white renters were. To learn more, read the Racial Disparities in Oregon State Eviction Filings: Quarter 1, 2024 Report.