Analysis

The Evictions Dashboard reveals both the dramatic impact of COVID-19 tenant protections and the troubling return to high eviction rates as those protections expired. The small multiples showing evictions over time by borough all display a similar pattern: relatively stable or slightly declining rates from 2017 through early 2020, followed by a dramatic collapse during the pandemic, and then a sharp recovery starting in 2022. The Bronx, shown in the top chart, maintained steady evictions around 1,500-1,800 per month from 2017-2019 before plummeting to nearly zero during the height of the pandemic in 2020-2021. As eviction moratoriums expired in January 2022, the line climbs steeply back upward, reaching 1,000-1,500 monthly evictions by 2024-2025, though not quite returning to pre-pandemic levels. Brooklyn's pattern is nearly identical but at a higher absolute scale, starting around 2,000 monthly evictions pre-pandemic, dropping to near zero, and recovering to roughly 1,000-1,200 by 2025.

Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island show the same temporal pattern but at progressively lower scales. Manhattan fluctuated around 800-1,000 monthly evictions pre-pandemic, while Queens maintained around 1,000-1,200, and Staten Island showed minimal evictions throughout, never exceeding a few hundred per month. The synchronized timing across all five boroughs makes it clear that the valley in 2020-2021 resulted from policy intervention rather than economic improvement. The fact that all boroughs are now trending upward suggests that as legal protections expired, landlords resumed eviction proceedings, and the underlying affordability crisis that drove pre-pandemic evictions remains unresolved.

The choropleth map showing evictions per 1,000 households by neighborhood reveals the geographic concentration of displacement pressure across the city. The darkest pink shading, indicating the highest eviction rates, appears prominently throughout the Bronx, particularly in the northern and central portions of the borough. Parts of northern and central Brooklyn also show deep pink coloring, indicating elevated eviction rates in these areas. In contrast, Manhattan shows lighter shading overall with some moderate pink in upper Manhattan neighborhoods, while southern Brooklyn, much of Queens, and Staten Island display the lightest shading, indicating lower per-capita eviction rates. This geographic pattern closely mirrors the rent burden map from the first dashboard, where the Bronx and parts of Brooklyn also showed the highest housing cost burdens. The correlation suggests that neighborhoods where residents already spend the highest percentage of income on housing are the same areas where evictions are most common, creating a clear pipeline from affordability crisis to displacement.

The histogram showing the distribution of eviction rates across neighborhoods in 2025 reveals significant variation in displacement pressure across the city. The distribution is right-skewed, with the majority of neighborhoods clustering between 10-100 evictions per 1,000 households, creating a peak in the 30-70 range. However, the long tail extending to over 400 evictions per 1,000 households indicates that some neighborhoods face extreme displacement pressure. The distribution shows roughly 14-15 neighborhoods at the highest rates (140-160 per 1,000 households), with frequencies dropping off as rates increase further. The presence of neighborhoods with rates above 250, and even some approaching 400-430, suggests pockets of severe crisis where eviction has become commonplace rather than exceptional. The histogram's shape tells us that while most neighborhoods experience moderate eviction rates, the crisis is highly concentrated in specific areas where displacement has reached catastrophic levels, likely corresponding to the high rent burden neighborhoods identified in the first dashboard and areas that have lost rent-stabilized housing protections.

The temporal pattern across all visualizations tells a story not just about COVID-19 but about the structural nature of housing instability in NYC. The pandemic protections proved that evictions can be prevented through policy intervention, as the near-complete elimination of evictions in 2020-2021 shows. However, the rapid return toward pre-pandemic levels demonstrates that without ongoing protections, the underlying economic pressures that lead to evictions remain unchanged. The correlation between high rent burden in the Bronx, loss of rent-stabilized housing, and the highest eviction rates creates a clear narrative: neighborhoods where residents pay the highest percentage of income for housing, lack protective rent regulations, and have the lowest incomes face a cascade of housing instability that culminates in eviction and displacement.