IU law professor: Marion County sees about 500 eviction filings a week; system is 'fast, cheap and easy'

Fran Quigley, clinical professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, told a Mid North Shepherd Center audience in Indianapolis that Marion County receives roughly 500 new eviction filings each week and that the U.S. eviction system has become “fast, cheap and easy.”

Quigley, who directs the law school's Housing, Health and Human Rights Clinic and whose students observe eviction dockets weekly, said the people who show up in eviction court are often low-wage workers, injured or disabled people and older residents who cannot afford market-rate housing. He described eviction as both a local crisis — 500 filings a week in Marion County — and part of a national pattern of millions of filings annually.

Quigley opened with clients’ stories to illustrate who is affected: a fast-food assistant manager who missed pay after a car repair, a warehouse worker injured on the job and a 74-year-old man on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) who could not absorb a $200 rent increase. “We see parents with young children, home health aides, warehouse workers,” Quigley said. He gave median pay examples from the region — food service about $15 an hour, home health care about…