St. Joseph County evictions report reveals tenant-landlord imbalance, offers solutions

SOUTH BEND — Over five months, Katherine Wines spent nearly every Monday in a St. Joseph County courtroom observing eviction hearings.

Wines works as a legal navigator for Pro Bono Indiana, a statewide organization that pairs low-income residents with free legal representation. Armed with a clipboard and a template for easy data input, Wines tracked 655 filings from May to September 2023 to better understand the eviction process.

She came away with a number of insights and on Tuesday published a report about eviction proceedings in St. Joseph County.

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The report concludes that because of excessive caseloads, too few judges and state laws that heavily favor landlords — Indiana is one of only six states that doesn't allow tenants to withhold rent because of habitability concerns — the eviction process is streamlined to remove people from units. It's a "cheap, easy, fast first step" for landlords.

Written with co-author Judith Fox, a professor emerita at Notre Dame Law School who has worked with low-income tenants for decades, the report recommends substantive changes that would help more tenants to seal evictions from their rental records and reveals the legal advantages landlords hold over tenants. The two presented the report on Tuesday, Feb. 20 at the Civil Rights Heritage Center.

Here are some of the major takeaways from the report.

The scale of evictions in St. Joseph County

Since a statewide moratorium against evictions ended in August 2020, property owners have filed more than 8,000 evictions in St. Joseph County. That number does not reflect how many people were in fact kicked out of their homes.

Among the 655 filings Wines tracked, the proceedings led 778 people to end up with evictions on their rental records. Many renters live with roommates, Wines noted.

Non-white tenants, households led by single mothers and households with children are more likely to face eviction, the court watch study finds.

From May 2023 to this February, judges awarded landlords nearly $722,000 in eviction-related damages. The average tenant owed $4,382, an amount that accrues interest at 8% annually.

Large apartment complexes file the most evictions, Fox said, but they don't necessarily evict at the highest rates. Data from Princeton's Eviction Lab shows that Hickory Village Apartments, Castle Point Apartments and Irish Hills Apartments lead St. Joseph County landlords in filing evictions.

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Landlords overpower tenants in evictions court

In all the cases Wines observed, tenants won only twice. Both times, judges ruled against landlords for violating Indiana law requiring that homes be safely habitable.

The odds stacked against tenants are especially high when they don't show up, which happens about half the time. This contributes to the fact that two-thirds of eviction hearings are over in five minutes or less.

When tenants are at hearings, they're often overwhelmed by the evidence against them and given insufficient time to respond, the study argues.

About half of hearings that lasted five minutes or less involved tenants. Landlords were represented by lawyers in 71% of hearings, while tenants brought lawyers only 1% of the time.

Given that small claims courts don't permit a discovery phase, during which each side can obtain evidence from the other before a trial, tenants often must show up and react to the allegations against them in real time. Phones aren't allowed in courthouses, so tenants are forced to leave behind what evidence they may have brought.

Recommendations aim to grant tenants more time, more information

The study's authors recommend that courts schedule hearings at least 21 days after the St. Joseph County sheriff's office delivers an eviction notice. The median notice period granted is 19 days, but several landlords gave fewer than three days' notice.

Fox noted that people facing eviction often work low-paying hourly jobs, where calling off requires planning weeks in advance with one's employer. The rule would also give people more time to arrange for child care and transportation to the hearing.

"If you’re already in financial straits because you can't pay your rent," Fox said, "the last thing you need to do is lose your job."

The study also recommends that courts require landlords to provide more details in eviction notices. Often they write only a few general terms, Fox said.

"Lots of times, the tenant shows up," Fox said, "and they have no idea why they’re there."

State law for sealing evictions should be more widely applied

Tenants scored a win in 2022 when the Indiana General Assembly granted renters the right to seal certain eviction records from public view, thereby improving their chances of finding a new apartment.

But of more than 300 cases in which tenants were eligible to seal their evictions, only 30 were sealed, according to the local study.

Tenants are often unaware of their right to seal an eviction, branding them with a "Scarlet E" in the eyes of landlords. The authors recommend that judges be required to inform tenants of that right. Going a step further, they say Indiana law should be amended to automatically seal evictions in eligible cases.

Tenants may file a petition with the court to seal an eviction if no money judgment has been ordered against them and any of the following occurs: the eviction is dismissed; the court grants judgment in favor of the tenant; or an appeals court overturns or vacates an initial judgment against a tenant.

Help is available for tenants

Resources and the law: What to expect if an eviction is filed against you in Indiana

View your eviction record by searching your name on mycase.in.gov. Call the Volunteer Lawyer Network at 574-277-0075 for more information about legal help.

Residents can receive free legal advice, including how to expunge an eviction from one's rental record, through clinics hosted on the first and third Thursdays of each month by the Volunteer Lawyer Network. Clinics will be held at the following times and locations in March and April:

■ Thursday, March 7: From 1-4 p.m. at the Tutt Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library, 2223 Miami St., South Bend

■ Thursday, March 21: From 1-4 p.m. at the River Park Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library, 2022 Mishawaka Ave., South Bend

■ Thursday, April 4: From 1-4 p.m. at the Main Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library, 304 S. Main St., South Bend

■ Thursday, April 18: From 1-4 p.m. at the LaSalle Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library, 3232 Ardmore Trail, South Bend

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: St. Joseph County evictions study shares data in report