Marion County’s eviction rate remains high, and new data from the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana examines landlord eviction filing rates, highly impacted demographics and reasons most often given for not paying rent.
Executive Director of FHCCI Amy Nelson says this new report, ‘Marion County’s Top Evictors,’ expands on an earlier one this year. Both encourage more tenant protections. She says Indianapolis is in an eviction crisis.
"Things aren't getting better for people,” Nelson said. “In some cases, they might not be getting worse, but having 25,000 [24,938] eviction filings in a single year is not anything that we want to have continue to happen."
Indianapolis’ relatively high eviction rate isn’t new. High rates across the state are also widely seen to be a problem.
In 2020, Indiana launched a program to address the burden on courts. It encouraged landlords and tenants to use mediation instead. Evictions continued to pile up, leading the Indiana Supreme Court to set up an eviction task force in 2021 to handle the backlog.
Federal rent assistance in 2021 appeared to briefly lower eviction rates. Indianapolis residents experienced a brief downturn, with a total of 19,121 notices served.
FHCCI data shows an increase after that — landlords in the city filed more than 25,000 eviction notices in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
'Marion County’s Top Evictors'
FHCCI aims to fuel more tenant rights in Indiana, and the latest report breaks down the eviction rates of the city’s largest multifamily landlords. Van Rooy Companies and Emerald Empire/CYM Living have rates higher than the state average of 14%.
It also lists eviction rates for the county’s largest single-family landlords and subsidized housing providers.
Eviction rates are broken down to census tracts with demographic information.
It found renters in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods are more likely to be evicted than renters in majority white neighborhoods.
Van Rooy Companies evicts 43.6 units out of 100 in Black majority areas. Its areas in majority white areas have eviction rates of 5.9 units out of 100.
WFYI reached out to companies named in this piece, but none provided comment.
'Reason for nonpayment'
FHCCI pulled data for nonpayment from the Indianapolis Office of Public Health and Safety.
In Marion County, the most common reason for falling behind on rent was job loss or reduced hours at work (48%), followed by unexpected expenses (27%) and having to pay another debt (16%).
The report points to recent rankings from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. Indianapolis has the fifth-highest filing rate out of 43 cities tracked by the lab.
Nelson said Indiana lacks certain protections afforded to economically vulnerable renters in other states.
“We have seen a number of laws get passed that have heavily favored housing providers to the detriment of tenant-based rights,” said Nelson. “And some of those preemptions need to be rolled back so that there's more parity between the parties.”
Indiana is one of only four states without a statute allowing tenants to withhold rent or make repairs and deduct the cost from what they owe. Landlords are required to give tenants only 10 days' notice before filing for eviction for nonpayment of rent.
If you are facing eviction, here are some resources available to you:
If you're facing eviction in Indiana, what do you need to know?
What are your rights as a tenant in Indiana?
You can read the full FHCCI report on 2025’s top evictors in Indianapolis below:
Contact WFYI Digital Producer and Reporter Jeremy Reuben at jreuben@wfyi.org
