Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The state of Pennsylvania enacted a strong eviction moratorium that extended until August 31, 2020. Eviction filings related to nonpayment of rent were not accepted during that period, though courts did process previously-filed eviction cases. Eviction filings in Pittsburgh were down to nearly zero in April and May 2020, but increased by September 2020 following the end of the moratorium.

Data on renter population and median rent drawn from the American Community Survey (ACS). Details of the eviction process from the LSC Eviction Laws Database.

Filing Counts

Filing Rates Over the Past Year

Trends in eviction filings

This plot shows monthly eviction filings in Pittsburgh over the last year. Filings are displayed relative to the pre-pandemic average for the same set of months. You can toggle the plot to display filing counts and to extend the time frame back to January 2020.¹

Eviction filing data were collected by Legal Services Corporation. Historical averages cover the years 2016-2019. Additional data were provided by Lancaster Stands Up and the CMU CREATE Lab.

Get the data for this figure

Eviction filings by defendant race/ethnicity and gender

There are often large racial/ethnic and gender disparities in eviction risk. Here, we estimate the demographic characteristics of those filed against for eviction over the last year. We compare to data from the ACS that show the share of renters in the same categories.¹

Share of eviction filings

Share of renters

Get the data for these figures

Statistics rely on imputation of race/ethnicity and gender based on defendant names and addresses. We refer to “gender” throughout while acknowledging necessarily limitations of the imputation process and its inability to capture important subtleties in individuals’ gender identification. A complete description of this process can be found in the ETS methods page. ACS data are from 2015-2019 five-year estimates.

The geography of eviction filings

Allegheny County is divided into 115 zip codes. In each of those zip codes, we map the number of eviction filings over the last year. If you toggle below you can see these numbers as eviction filing rates—the number of eviction filings divided by the number of renter households in the area—or compared to the typical number of filings in the average year.¹ ²

Eviction filing data were collected by Legal Services Corporation. Historical averages cover the years 2016-2019. Additional data were provided by Lancaster Stands Up and the CMU CREATE Lab.
Zip code breakdown of renter race/ethnicity determined using American Community Survey (ACS) estimates for 2015–2019.

On map, we also plot the location of the top 100 eviction hotspots in the county (see above). Hover over the circles to see more information about filings from these locations.³

Number of filings by the top 100 filers

Get the data for zips in this figure Get the data for top filers in this figure

The demographics of eviction filings

Eviction filings by neighborhood race/ethnicity

American Community Survey (ACS) data allow us to categorize neighborhoods by their racial/ethnic majority: White, Black, or Other/None.

When you toggle the figure to see data relative to average, comparisons are being drawn—within the same set of neighborhoods defined by racial/ethnic majority—between filings in 2020-2022 and average filings in 2012–2019.¹

Eviction filing data were collected by Legal Services Corporation. Historical averages cover the years 2016-2019. Additional data were provided by Lancaster Stands Up and the CMU CREATE Lab.