This Calculator will calculate the costs of some major aftereffects of eviction in your community.

It will begin by asking you a series of questions about your community. It will provide default answers based either on national data or the geographical information that you enter in the first step. It will also explain why each of these questions is relevant to calculating the community cost of eviction. When you are finished, it will provide a summary of the total cost, as well as a PDF report explaining the formulas and data that it relied on.

It is important to note that this is only an estimate of some downstream costs of eviction. Calculations are limited by availability and reliability of data. For example, many of our formulas consider your input on your community's annual number of evictions. This number is limited. It would not account for individuals who leave their home after an eviction threat, filing, or notice, but before an eviction judgment, and nevertheless become homeless. It also does not account for individuals who leave their home after a landlord illegally evicts them, for example, by changing the locks. Moreover, there are many other costs of eviction that it does not calculate. As a result, the total cost generated by this calculator will be an underestimate.

Anyone interested in measuring the costs of eviction in their community can use this Calculator. Whether you're a housing advocate, a community leader, or a teacher, you can use this Calculator to raise awareness about the eviction crisis and advocate for change-making in your community.

To use the Calculator, you will input local data about evictions and some of its related aftereffects.

If you can’t find local data, don’t worry--the Calculator will provide you data or instructions on how to find it. Based on the numbers you enter (or the Calculator provides), the Calculator will generate your community's total estimated cost of eviction.

We ask you to provide data about:

• The number of people evicted per year in your community
• The percentage of evictions resulting in displacement triggering shelter needs
• The average daily cost and length of stay in homeless shelters
• The cost and usage rates of inpatient and emergency medical care
• Child welfare costs, including the total amount your state spends (including federal and state expenditures) and the percentage your local community is responsible for

OPTIONAL: Click for a full list of questions the Calculator will ask. Obtaining local data will give you a more precise calculation, but this is not necessary to use the Calculator.

Evictions destabilize families by forcing them out of their homes, which leads to displacement and homelessness triggering the need for emergency social and economic services. Evictions also burden local communities and their taxpayers.

This Calculator is not a replacement for understanding the human impacts of the eviction crisis. Rather, it is a tool that advocates and change-makers can use to show communities how much they are spending on the effects of eviction--money that could be spent preventing evictions and alleviating their human costs.