According to a new report from Stanford Law School’s Community Law Clinic, eviction cases in San Mateo County – where rents are among the highest in the nation – have climbed past pre-pandemic levels. In 2023, a total of 1,510 eviction cases were filed – a 35% increase from 2019. And early data from 2024 suggest the trend is continuing. The numbers echo national patterns, the report says.​

“Evictions in San Mateo County, 2019-2023,” conducted on behalf of the clinic’s clients Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (CLSEPA) and the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County (Legal Aid SMC), analyzed eviction cases from the last full year before the pandemic through the first full year after the expiration of COVID-era eviction moratoria. It offers a rare and in-depth look at eviction patterns in the county where the law school’s Community Law Clinic represents low-income tenants. The top line finding: There has been an uptick in evictions in San Mateo County, with the vast majority based on nonpayment of rent.

The findings reinforce the need for increased rental assistance, according to Juliet Brodie, director of the Community Law Clinic. “We call it a housing crisis, but really it’s a rent crisis,” she says. “People aren’t being evicted because they refuse to pay rent. They’re being evicted because they can’t afford to. The gap between wages and rents just keeps getting bigger.”

Unlocking hidden data

Among the significant aspects of this study was how the Stanford Law researchers accessed eviction records. Unlike most legal proceedings, the majority of eviction cases in California and nationwide are sealed from public view. To obtain comprehensive data, the research team secured a court order from a San Mateo County judge that allowed them to analyze full eviction case records while anonymizing tenant information.

“Eviction is one of the most significant legal processes impacting low-income families, yet it’s incredibly difficult to study due to privacy laws, which are of course vital,” says Brodie, who co-authored the report, along with Stanford Law School lecturer Lauren N. Zack, a clinical supervising attorney, and clinic students. “This study wouldn’t have been possible without that judicial order, which balanced tenants’ need for privacy with policymakers’ and the public’s need for information.”

Implications for housing policy and legal aid

“We’ve long speculated about patterns and trends among eviction cases in San Mateo County,” says Lauren Romagnoli, JD ’25, one of the report’s student researchers. “But it wasn’t until we got the data from the filed cases that we could finally put hard numbers to the trends we had long suspected.”

Legal aid organizations, including CLSEPA and Legal Aid SMC, plan to use the data in connection with their advocacy for increased eviction defense resources, more tenant protections, and county rental assistance programs.

One interesting data point from the report, Brodie says, was that default judgments (where a tenant does not respond in court and automatically loses) declined between 2019 and 2023. “This decrease suggests that legal aid groups have been effective in helping tenants file responses, even if they do not have the staff to fully represent them,” Brodie says. “The decrease in default judgments suggests that even limited legal help, such as assistance with filling out court documents, can make a major difference. Unsurprisingly, the tenants who are able to show up in court have much better outcomes than those who don’t.”

Unlike criminal defendants, tenants facing eviction do not have a guaranteed right to an attorney, leaving many to navigate the legal system alone. Some jurisdictions, including San Francisco and New York City, have implemented “right to counsel” programs that provide attorneys for low-income tenants, significantly reducing evictions, according to the report.

“The Tenant Protection Act of 2019 gave tenants some protections and the data show that the number of ‘no cause’ evictions decreased in San Mateo County since its enactment. At the same time, falling behind in rent is still a lawful basis for eviction, and there are still so many holes through which the tenants we serve can fall,” says Katrina Logan, executive director of CLSEPA. “The findings in this report help shed light on some key trends so that we can most effectively deploy our resources.”

Beyond legal representation and rental assistance, housing advocates stress the importance of broader policy solutions, such as rent control, stronger tenant protections, and increased investment in affordable housing. In addition to confirming the prevalence of nonpayment of rent as the basis for evictions, some of the additional findings of the report include:

• Most landlords are represented by counsel and most tenants are not, with the rate of landlord representation increasing from 2019 to 2023.
• Most landlord-plaintiffs are business entities rather than individuals, and the percentage of entity plaintiffs rose significantly from 65% in 2019 to 75% in 2023.
• The percentage of cases that ended in judgment (including default judgment, and as opposed to dismissal) decreased from just over 50% in 2019 to 44% in 2023.
• Tenants who file responses in court have better outcomes than tenants who fail to participate in the process.

Additional research and advocacy

Brodie said the clinic’s report is attracting interest from regional organizations like the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, which is conducting a broader study on evictions across the nine-county Bay Area.

“As the rate of evictions continues to climb in San Mateo County, we are eager to put the findings of this report into action and advocacy,” says M. Stacey Hawver, JD ’87, executive director of Legal Aid SMC. “The need for assistance with evictions and other tenant matters often feels overwhelming, but it is heartening to see that the data in the report aligns with what our client communities are experiencing. We hope the data will buttress support for vulnerable tenant families.”

A separate report published recently by Stanford’s Law and Policy Lab offers support for a proposed new state law that would give renters more time to catch up on delinquent rent before facing eviction. Read “Win-Win: Paying Landlords and Keeping Californians Housed.”