More jurisdictions are considering how to seal eviction records to protect tenants from disastrous consequences in their future housing opportunities. This guide walks through how to set up policies around this.
The nonprofit Upturn (which focuses on tech, equity, and justice) has a guide for legislators and strategists working on Sealing Eviction Records efforts.
It goes through the reasons that sealing eviction records can be so important, and then lays out key pieces of guidance for legislators to enact these rules.
Some of the highlights include planning to:
Automatically seal eviction records. It shouldn’t be depending on the person having to apply and ask.
They should be sealed as soon as they are filed into the court record. This can stop them from being exposed or recorded in shadow databases.
They should be sealed as long as possible.
There should be barriers and limits to who has access to them.
Public members should still be able to access them under the law, but with protections in place.
Collaborations with courts — especially clerks and technologists — will be essential to make this happen.
The Track Milwaukee Evictions website has gathered data about local eviction filings, court outcomes, neighborhood risk, and housing code violations. They present the data fields & visualizations to show how the eviction system works locally — and who is most at risk.
A coalition of the federal reserve, Georgia Tech, and a regional commission established a detailed eviction data tracker to understand what is happening with eviction court case filings.
