Eviction Filings Are Way Up In Texas, And A New Law Prevents Cities From Doing Anything About It

The ranks of Texans on the verge of losing their homes is already spiking. Now, a recently passed state law could make it even harder for local governments to intervene.

Texas' attempt to address homelessness got a gut punch in mid-June when Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 2127, legislation that will repeal local ordinances that conflict with state law in a number of areas, including tenant rights and eviction protections. Known colloquially as the Death Star Bill, it also pre-empts regulations in areas where state statute is silent.

Thanks to a last-minute amendment, it specifically revokes municipalities' rights to regulate local evictions, putting multiple programs into question.

“This bill will have a chilling effect on eviction programs, and it will prevent a lot of really good measures from coming on the books and helping renters in the future," said Jacob Haas, a research specialist with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. “It’ll get rid of some really good protections currently in place in some cities in Texas.”

Eviction filings across most major cities in Texas have steadily climbed since the statewide moratorium ended in May 2020, while a lack of supply and historic levels of in-migration have pushed up the cost of housing by 45% statewide since the start of 2020.

Texas evicted a record 270,000 people in 2022, per AP News, with filings in cities like Houston exceeding 140% of their pre-pandemic average over the past year. Rental rate growth has also soared, and wages have failed to keep up in tandem.

Those factors have converged into a perfect storm, and a growing number of Texans are grappling with the prospect of homelessness, said Ben Martin, research director with advocacy group Texas Housers.

“Evictions are at historically high rates — folks are losing housing, folks are becoming housing unstable,” he said. “The outcome of that is well-documented as being extremely negative for individuals, for families, for whole communities and potentially for the larger economy.”

Lawmakers amended HB 2127, or the Death Star Bill, in the final days of the legislative session to include local eviction ordinances. Housing advocates suspect the move was intended to push back against protections enacted in dense urban districts, including one in Austin that requires landlords to give tenants at least seven days to resolve lease violations before an eviction notice is filed. 

Austin was particularly aggressive in passing eviction protections earlier in the pandemic, Haas said. This led to Travis County filings hovering between 64% and 93% below pre-pandemic averages until the city was forced to end its local moratorium in March. 

Data out of the Houston area paints an entirely different picture. Filings in Harris and Galveston counties have been above 50% of pre-pandemic averages since January 2022, according to Eviction Lab data. A higher rate of filings is inevitable given Houston’s size compared to Texas’ other major metros, a spokesperson with the city’s housing authority said.

This disparity only goes to prove the impact cities and counties can have when it comes to preventing evictions, Haas said. HB 2127 goes into effect Sept. 1, and it remains unclear which regulations and programs it will preempt. But what is not up for debate is the lack of control local governments now have to prevent displacement, he said.

“This could really hurt renters at particularly vulnerable times when they are facing eviction,” Haas said. “It was largely cities and counties that stepped up to prevent the disaster of housing instability during the depths of the pandemic.”

Those in favor of the bill said it returns decision-making to the state, which was the original intent of Texas’ property code, drafted by the legislature in 1985. Amending the bill to include evictions was necessary after many cities took it upon themselves to adopt local ordinances during the pandemic, said Jason Simon, director of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas.

“The statutory language in HB 2127 makes it clear that cities are not able to legislate in the area of evictions,” he said. “It’s a Texas law, state law issue, property code issue. … If those kinds of decisions are going to be made, they should be made at the state level in the legislature.”

A standardized approach was especially important to landlords with properties across several jurisdictions, Simon said, with smaller, less-resourced owners often bearing the brunt of legal inconsistencies.

“There are all these layers of regulation that are frankly hard for our members to follow,” he said.

Dallas City Council passed an ordinance in November requiring landlords to give renters 10 days' notice of a proposed eviction before they can administer the state-required three-day notice to vacate, according to the AAGD. HB 2172 would repeal that ordinance, among other tenant protections.

Austin and Dallas have seen their eviction filings hover around pre-pandemic averages over the last few months, according to Eviction Lab. It is difficult to pinpoint why that is and is hardly a measure of success, Haas said.

“To be around historical averages is a tragedy for thousands of families,” he said. “There were 3.7 million eviction filings in the years prior to the pandemic nationwide, which is millions of families that face the heat of eviction, face potential displacement from their homes or physical force displacements.”

Cities and counties are in the process of deciding how they will react to the passage of HB 2127. The bill text is vague, Martin said, and local governments’ interpretation of the law will likely vary.

“For a bill that was meant to reduce this sort of patchwork approach, in the short term, we are going to see patchwork in a number of ways,” he said.

Some cities will continue with business as usual until they are told otherwise. That is the plan in San Antonio, where a recently approved tenants bill of rights requires landlords to direct renters to local, state and federal resources in the case of a looming eviction.

Neither Texas Housers nor Eviction Lab tracks data out of San Antonio, but a 2022 Texas Housers report found that almost 48% of the city’s 625,000 renters were cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing.

“It’s such a vague law,” San Antonio Council Member Adriana Rocha Garcia said of HB 2127. “We are still trying to figure out what it is we will be able to do or not be able to do.” 

Housing advocates fear HB 2127 may also target rent relief programs. Rental assistance was hugely impactful in preventing mass evictions early in the pandemic, and it had the dual benefit of making landlords whole when many tenants were out of work, Simon said. 

The state allocated $167M in federal coronavirus relief funds toward rental assistance in September 2020. The program closed when funds ran out in November 2021 before reopening in March 2023 with another $96M. 

More than 70,000 applications were submitted within the first 24 hours, forcing the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs to close the portal early.

“It is unclear whether 2127 preempts programmatic work happening at the local level or funding at the local level,” Martin said. “We’re not sure, and we hope it doesn’t impact that.” 

The legislature doesn’t meet again until 2025. Until then, questions around HB 2127 will likely have to be settled by the judicial system, Martin said.

“If it is interpreted broadly by the courts, we’re going to end up in a scenario where we are in this eviction crisis and local governments have no way to address it,” he said. “We will just be waiting for the legislature to address it, which they may or may not do.”