Parts of Houston and Harris County have eviction filing rates 3 times county average, data shows<\/a><\/p>\nABC13 went to the courtroom at Harris County Precinct 7, Place 1 to hear some eviction cases.<\/p>\n
One person after another walked into court for their eviction hearing.<\/p>\n
Among those who showed up was Vanessa Crowe.<\/p>\n
“I did come here for an eviction hearing today,” Crowe said. “I am past due on my balance. I came here looking for a little bit of assistance for legal help.”<\/p>\n
Crowe said she fell behind while trying to manage life as a single mother and college student.<\/p>\n
“I just started childcare and that alone by myself paying for it. That’s expensive,” Crowe said.<\/p>\n
She walked into court unsure of what would happen next, and she was far from the only one.<\/p>\n
According to a 2024 map by the Kinder Institute, the highest concentrations of eviction filings were in the northern suburbs and south Houston. Some of those areas saw eviction notices involving 30% of renters, roughly three times the county average.<\/p>\n
In the MacGregor neighborhood, where Crowe said she lives, 14.5% of renters faced eviction.<\/p>\n
Inside the Precinct 7, Place 1 courtroom, Judge Wanda Adams comes face to face with those cases.<\/p>\n
“We had an average maybe when I first got here, we probably average in a given day, maybe about 20 to 25,” Judge Adams said. “Then it started growing. I think one day they came and they told me, ‘Judge, you have 100 or so evictions on your docket.'”<\/p>\n
Adams said those cases often involve people dealing with a sudden setback.<\/p>\n
“The majority of the evictions that I see now are because people have lost jobs or there’s been a death in the family,” Judge Adams said.<\/p>\n
Crowe’s case was one of them. But Crowe said there was a moment when she considered not coming to court at all.<\/p>\n
She says she didn’t believe showing up would change the outcome. However, it did.<\/p>\n
Crowe said she was connected with legal help and rental assistance, which gave her the chance to get current on what she owed.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the courtroom she feared could mean losing her home became the place where she found a path to stay because she showed up.<\/p>\n
“I’m so grateful that I was able to get the assistance that I need and have a reset and be able to get back up on my feet,” Crowe said.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — For many, falling behind on rent can happen quickly. It can involve losing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[153829,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-445844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-153829","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}