Duval County is Florida’s epicenter of evictions, with rent rising by nearly 28% since 2020

As per the UNF report, the rent surge in Jacksonville since 2020, one of the highest in the nation, has left over half of the city’s renters grappling with financial strain, a situation that demands our empathy and action.

The research, released on Wednesday by the University of North Florida, paints a grim picture-Duval County is the epicenter of evictions in Florida, with a staggering seven court-filed evictions for every 1,000 renters, a disparity that calls for immediate intervention.

That is nearly twice as many as Miam -Dade and Pinellas Counties. According to the report, Hillsborough has 4.7 eviction files per 1000 tenants, whereas Orange County has 5.8.

According to data from 2022, tenants in Jacksonville’s Arlington and Westside neighborhoods have the highest chance of being evicted. 

In Jacksonville, renters make up four out of every ten households, and they face growing expenses. According to the report, the county’s typical total rent for a one-bedroom apartment increased from $1103 to $1409 between 2020 and 202, an increase of 27.7%. The research finds that the rent increases over this period have been among the highest in the nation among major metropolitan areas. “ 

A tenant must make at least $25.06 per hour to afford rent in Duval County without becoming cost-burdened, which is defined as spending more than 30% of their income on rent. Just 47% of Duval renters are beyond that cutoff, meaning 53% are burdened with costs. 

According to the report, less than 50% of Jacksonville jobs pay enough for renters to comfortably afford their rent. The project’s goal, according to the UNF researchers who carried out the research, is “to highlight the broad scope of the economic challenge facing tenants in a relatively low wage economy alongside sharply rising rent.”