Eviction is emerging as a stark driver of racial health disparities, with new research showing that more than half of Black women have faced court-ordered or illegal eviction regardless of income, education, or neighborhood. Led by epidemiologist Dr. Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson, the study frames eviction not as an individual failure but as “a public health crisis rooted in racism,” with consequences that echo across a lifetime for Black women, their children, and their communities.
Researchers found that childhood eviction significantly increased the risk of poor physical, mental, and emotional health in adulthood, with those evicted as children 12–17% more likely to report poor health and more than a third reporting worse overall health than their peers. Living in high-eviction communities was also linked to increased psychological distress among pregnant Black women, even when they themselves were not evicted, underscoring how housing instability magnifies maternal health risks in a population already at least three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women.
Dr. Sealy-Jefferson describes illegal evictions against Black women as “state-sanctioned violence,” arguing that the Fair Housing Act “by design, does not ensure the protection for Black women that our civil rights pioneers fought and died for.” She calls for structural solutions: stronger tenant protections, expanded affordable housing assistance focused on Black women and families with children, enforcement against illegal evictions, and even federal reparations as a step toward health equity. “Structural solutions are required for structural problems,” she concludes, emphasizing that today’s eviction crisis is inseparable from the history of structural racism and gender oppression in the United States.
See: “Evicted No Matter What: How Structural Racism Targets Black Women Across Income and Education Levels” (July 2, 2025)
