Across the region, there's a big disparity in how long people live. Nearly 90 years, on average, in Indian Hill and Mason, but barely over 60 in Arlington Heights and Adams County. That's nearly 30 years of life, love, children, grandchildren, and memories that are lost. Why? Community health experts are looking at the larger forces that shape health and wellness. The places where we grow up, live, work, and age shape our lives and our opportunities to thrive. This is the eighth story in the series, Health Justice in Action, a year-long deep dive into the factors that people and neighborhoods need for long, healthful lives.You can read other stories in the series here.
Every day in Hamilton County, three dozen families are faced with the urgent prospect of being forced out of their homes.
Many of them have jobs, are trying to make ends meet, but can’t afford the rent. Many are Black; many are single mothers.
Tania Davis makes $40 an hour as a licensed practical nurse at a nursing home in Fairfield. Her and her two children – a 5-year-old on the autism spectrum and a young teen, live in an apartment complex in Forest Park, where the rent is about $1,300 a month. Despite her full-time job, Tania earlier this month found herself faced with eviction, owing more than $4,400 to the landlord, a large Cincinnati-based property management company.
With a car payment, insurance, medical bills, and school fees, she’s struggling to pay all her bills. “I live paycheck to paycheck,” she says. Although she wants to stay in the apartment and is trying to pay the back rent, a Hamilton County magistrate gave her seven days to either move out, pay what she owes, or work something out with the landlord. With her earthly options narrowing, she looked to a higher power.
“I’m religious,” she says. “I know whatever happens it will work out.”
Evictions, which are climbing in Greater Cincinnati and across the country, have been linked to a range of health problems, especially for children. On the edge of losing their home, Tania and her family are at greater risk of poor health, depression, drug abuse, even suicide.
“The recent surges in evictions in the U.S. serve as a potent threat to population health,” found a
study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
Falling into the gap
In Hamilton County this year, landlords filed to evict tenants
8,566 times through August, an average of 35 eviction filings a day. In the month of July, evictions spiked to an average of 43 a day.
For a time, evictions declined dramatically as the U.S. and some states placed a moratorium on them. In an indicator of the link between housing and health, the moratorium was put in place by a health agency, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although it was lifted in 2021, financial assistance through government Covid relief programs helped to stem the eviction tide.
However, in 2022, evictions returned to pre-pandemic levels here and across the U.S. As the cost of housing has soared and wages have stagnated, more people are falling into the gap, which can lead to eviction. Failing to pay rent can quickly result in eviction, as the housing crunch means landlords usually have a waiting list of people who want to rent from them.
“The increase in housing costs has really tightened people's wallets so that they're having to make those choices between buying food, putting gas in the car, or paying rent,” says Elisabeth Risch, executive director of
Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME), the Cincinnati fair housing not-for-profit. “Our laws are very tight, so that if you're late, if you don't pay that full amount, the landlord can file for eviction almost immediately.”
Rent in Greater Cincinnati has increased faster than any other city in the country. It’s not unusual for some families to spend fully half of their income – or more -- on rent, says Nick DiNardo, an attorney who manages
Legal Aid Society’s housing practice. That leaves little for health care, food, education, and transportation. “We have a real issue here” he says.
He works every day with families facing eviction and who need legal help. “The majority of my clients are all working,” he says. “They might be juggling two part-time jobs, or they don't have paid leave and they get sick, or their kids are sick. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and you miss a few days of work, that really puts you behind. There's even less room with rents increasing as fast as they are.”
For a Forest Park couple with three children, a cut in hours at the husband’s warehouse job spelled disaster. They asked that their names not be used out of fear of retribution from the big, out-of-town real estate company that owns the house they live in. Even with the wife’s job at a Cincinnati medical center, they fell nearly $5,000 behind in rent. The husband tried unsuccessfully for 45 minutes on a Friday to get through to the company via phone to make arrangements to pay. But by Monday, the company had tacked on fees and asked for the next month’s rent in advance. Now, the total due would be more than $8,000.
They were prepared to pay the amount they owed on Friday, but by Monday, the amount had increased so much they didn’t know how they would pay it. “Our children need a house to live in,” the wife said. “We can't let them just be out in the street.” She lamented the quick fall into the eviction gap the family faced. “No one wants to give people a chance,” she said. “I understand, it's a business, that's their livelihood. But we’ve been there for years.”
The impact on health
If they were to be evicted, the health of the family would be immediately
at risk. They may become homeless or be forced to accept substandard living conditions at their next place. Even an eviction filing can wind up on a person’s public record, making it possible they will be denied for future rental housing. Children may be forced to change schools midyear. Mothers in particular are likely to suffer from depression, which affects their capacity to be supportive parents.
“The effect of eviction on mental health outcomes—and mothers’ depression in particular—will be resilient, lasting years after the event,” found a
study by researchers at Harvard and Rice universities.
Evictions happen very quickly, leaving little time for the tenants to figure out what to do. Once a notice is posted to the tenant’s door, as required by law, they have three days to move. If the tenant does not move in that time, the landlord can then file for eviction. The case then goes to eviction court, usually within two weeks. If the landlord is successful in court – and they usually are – the tenant has seven days to move.
Eviction court is held five days a week for two hours a day In Hamilton County. A magistrate works through a docket of 40 to 50 cases in less than an hour. The landlords are almost always represented by attorneys. The tenants, if they show up, almost never have the benefit of legal representation.
In nearly every case, the landlords answer the same questions under oath:
At least three days before you filed this action, did you serve them with a notice to vacate?
“Yes.”
How was the notice posted?
“On the door.”
Was it for nonpayment of rent?
“Yes.”
Have you accepted any money since you filed this action?
“No”
Are they still living there?
“Yes”
Do you want them out?
“Yes”
The magistrate then issues an order requiring the tenant to move out within seven days. On to the next case.
“Often people don’t know what happened,” says Legal Aid’s DiNardo.
That was the case with Henrietta Bush, who was alone, bewildered, outside Courtroom B of the county justice center after her minute-long hearing. “I don't even know what they said in there,” she said. “Did they say seven days?”
The 38-year-old makes $5.85 an hour plus tips at a local chili parlor, had to help pay for a sister’s funeral, and fell behind on the rent at her Avondale apartment. She shared text messages with her landlord that showed an initial agreement to accept $750 toward the back rent, but a few hours later the landlord upped the ante to $1,250, and issued a warning: “Please note that this payment does not guarantee a full stop to the eviction. It will still need to be reviewed and approved by upper management.”
It’s easy for a landlord to evict someone for nonpayment in Ohio, DiNardo says. A rent payment merely one day late is enough to warrant an eviction notice, and landlords are not required to accept late payments. If the rent is one day late, a tenant may come home to find a notice to vacate the premises posted to their door.
If tenants have complained about poor living conditions, they may be more likely to face a quick eviction, DiNardo says. “The reality is that often landlords file for nonpayment when the issue is something else the tenant has complained about, maybe a leaky pipe or a leaky roof, and then suddenly, if they’re one day late making the rent, the landlord will file. We see that a lot.”
Help is available
Legal Aid prioritizes such cases, because the tenant may have a defense if there’s been a complaint about substandard housing conditions. The agency also prioritizes cases from subsidized housing, and is able to provide rental assistance in some cases, DiNardo says. Through its legal defense and rental assistance, Legal Aid can help with a little more than 1,000 cases a year throughout its seven-county service area. In Hamilton County alone, more than 13,000 eviction cases will be filed this year. “We can only take a small percentage of what the need is out there,” DiNardo says.
More than 90% of the tenants in eviction court are there without an attorney. The imbalance between property owners with a lawyer and an unrepresented, poor tenant usually results in a quick win for the landlord. Assistance is available through a program called the Help Center. Two days a week, two young attorneys are available at a table outside Courtroom B to assist walk-up tenants who are on the eviction docket that day. The program, which could be expanded next year, is funded by the city of Cincinnati and the Hamilton County clerk of courts.
“The outcome when somebody has representation versus when they don't is just remarkable,” says Nick Zingarelli, the Center’s chief attorney. Through early September, the Center had assisted more than 800 cases just being there two days a week. More than 90% of those resulted in at least a temporary reprieve from eviction. “When we can get additional time for the tenant, that's a win, because it's additional time for them to remain housed, to potentially find new housing without having an eviction judgment against them, or to raise the funds they need,” Zingarelli says. The Center also has access to rental assistance money.
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Natalie GrilliThe Help Center's Nick ZingarelliHOME also provides rental assistance and administers two programs aimed at keeping children or expectant mothers in their homes. It works with four schools in the Cincinnati district, where teachers and staff identify students whose families are at risk of eviction. HOME staffers meet those parents once a month to make them aware of HOME’s assistance, other available resources, and their rights as tenants.
“We're trying to help them hang on,” says Janet Brown, HOME’s director of tenant advocacy. “We're trying to keep them calm.”
The agency also works with Mercy Health to identify pregnant mothers who may be at risk of losing their homes. HOME can provide rental assistance, utility assistance, and counseling to keep new mothers, many of whom will need to take unpaid maternity leave, in their homes with their newborns.
“People in housing instability need money and they need support to help them navigate this incredibly difficult system,” Risch says.
Long-term support is the idea behind a new program designed to forestall eviction. Renew Collaborative is a pilot project that combines immediate rental assistance with a year of support and counseling meant to keep tenants out of the financial morass that can lead to eviction.
New project seeks long-term solutions
The pilot is currently a collaboration with the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority for its Winton Terrace housing complex. CMHA, by virtue of being the city’s main public housing provider, is also one of its biggest filers of eviction notices. At Winton Terrace, one of 11 CMHA housing projects, an eviction notice now makes the tenant eligible for emergency rental assistance. But the assistance doesn’t end there. Tenants who receive help with the rent agree to meet with a Renew Collaborative counselor over the course of a year to address family budgets and other issues that may have led to the eviction threat.
“It’s meant to immediately identify a solution to an eviction situation, but then also add opportunities to work with families beyond the crisis to ensure that the crisis does not repeat itself,” says Matt Long, the program’s director.
The
program is currently under the auspices of the United Way and is funded by that agency and the Greenlight Fund of Cincinnati. In 2024, the second full year of the program, 67 evictions were prevented, keeping 236 people in their homes, Long says. All of those families remained in that housing months later after receiving stabilization services. After the rent is caught up, an outreach manager works with the families to discover opportunities for better paying jobs, access to benefits and other community resources that can improve family stability.
“There are families that may need more things to prevent another missed payment or outright eviction summons from happening, and that's what the Renew model is seeking to do,” Long says.
The Cincinnati program is an offshoot of one that was started in Boston that provides eviction counseling to about a thousand households a year. Boston Housing Authority tenants served by the Renew Collaborative were 44% less likely to be evicted than others that also faced eviction due to nonpayment of rent.
Additionally, 87% maintained housing in their Boston Housing Authority unit and 95% avoided eviction due to non-payment.
The impact of the program and those provided by HOME, Legal Aid, the Help Center and others, is vital to the families threatened with losing their homes. But it’s still small compared to the wave of evictions that occur every day. More help may need to come in the form of legislation such as in Los Angeles, which passed a
comprehensive anti-eviction law in 2023, and Philadelphia, which created an
eviction diversion program to keep tenants out of court.
This series, Health Justice in Action, is made possible with support from Interact for Health. To learn more about Interact for Health's commitment to working with communities to advance health justice, please visit here.