Evictions have skyrocketed since the pandemic — and, now, we’ve hit a record.
Landlords in Maricopa County filed more evictions in 2024 than they have in decades. The number? 87,000, the highest since 2005, and it points to the grim reality that a perfect storm of high rent, population growth and an affordable housing crisis are resulting in desperate situations for thousands of Arizona families. Something goes wrong, and they’re out of luck.
“That could be everything from a job loss to a medical emergency, sometimes a divorce. You know, all of those different kinds of factors or maybe a combination of those factors,” said Jayson Matthew, interim director of the Human Services Department at Maricopa County.
Matthew said there are a lot of services they can offer to help those facing eviction, from rental or utility assistance, to getting help from Community Legal Services if someone’s faced with an eviction notice.
But a lot of people don’t know those services exist and, he told me, there’s still a stigma.
"Creating a space where people can ask for help, number one deterrent in Human Services," Matthews said.
And Matthews said, the consequences of not getting those services can be much worse.
"Eviction notice can follow that renter for years to come … prevent them from getting another leave, other loans," Matthews said.
For former Maricopa County resident LaDonna Banfield, the challenges to maintaining housing in Arizona were too high. She’s had trouble finding housing with a prior eviction on her record and said she’s had to stretch to afford housing here.
"Rent right now is ridiculous. It is too high. And most people, they want you to pay 2 and a half to 3 times the rent, and they want you to make that. And if you don’t make that, then you’re not gonna get approved anyway,” LaDonna said.
Facing eviction again, LaDonna was living in her car when Lauren Gilger spoke with her last fall.
“It’s like you’re in survival mode and so you begin the lease in survival mode," LaDonna said. "And then when you get evicted it’s like, that sets you back even further, you can’t find a place, now homelessness is going up.”
But for Scott Blake, a constable of the Hassayampa Precinct and president of the Arizona Constables Association, it’s all about carrying out the law — with compassion.
Blake said the spike in evictions here takes a toll on everyone involved, and joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
SCOTT BLAKE: What happens is you are seeing individuals, families, sometimes multigenerational families at the worst time of their life, and that can sometimes take a human toll on those constables that are seeing that day in and day out.
LAUREN GILGER: How often does an eviction case end up in an actual eviction with you knocking on someone's door? Like, is that what usually happens?
BLAKE: No, when someone files for an eviction, when a property manager files for an eviction, I would say that generally speaking, only about 20% of those actually go to a constable knocking on the door. And when that happens, if the tenant is there, most of them understand why we're standing there when they see us and the door opens.
GILGER: They do, OK, so it's not usually a surprise. What do you say to folks?
BLAKE: I always introduce myself and I will ask them, do you know why I'm here, because if they say yes, well, the conversation changes because sometimes you can have somebody who answers the door, lives in that house, and has no idea that the husband or the wife is not paying the rent and you don't want to catch them off guard. If they understand why I'm there, then I let them know they have about 10 minutes to grab some things that they're going to need for the next couple of days and explain what happens from the time they walk out the door to them getting their things back.
GILGER: That's a really short period of time. I mean, what, what do people do? What do people say?
BLAKE: Sometimes they'll tell me that 10 minutes isn't enough, and I'm going to look at the situation and make a judgment call on that. If it's a single mom and there are 5 children in the house and 2 dogs and one of them's sick, well, maybe 10 minutes isn't enough time, and we're going to offer them more time.
On occasion, I have had to evict seniors where they have trouble getting around. Or they are a veteran and possibly disabled, they're always going to be given more time. I personally believe in justice and mercy, and as long as they're working with me, I don't mind giving them more time.
GILGER: What about resources like when you knock on someone's door and you're at the point of eviction, are there any resources left that you can offer them at that point?
BLAKE: There are, there are several websites I can direct them to. I actually have printed sheets, and it really depends on their background. Are they a veteran? Well, you can kind of point them in this direction. If they have a family, you can kind of point them in this direction. But most times, they have a place to go because they've been thinking about this since the minute that they didn't pay their rent. As a human, you know that you're going to need food and shelter, and with that, many already know where they're going to go.
GILGER: Why do folks tell you they haven't been paying their rent or they can't pay their rent? Like, why do you think it's gotten so much worse now than it had been in years past?
BLAKE: I don't know, other than, is it possible that COVID has played a role in this, where rent has been paid for many people for months on end, assistance from nonprofits and churches. I think that the economy is playing another role where the cost of living has increased, but the ability to earn money, I say a per hour rate, has decreased.
GILGER: OK, so I want to talk about the, the other side of this, the, the, the constable side of it, your side of it, right? Like, like you mentioned this at the beginning, and I think this is really interesting that this must be really mentally and emotionally challenging, like you mentioned having to evict families, seniors, veterans. How do you train for that? How do you handle it?
BLAKE: Personally, I am a faith-based person. We offer classes on how to deal with this. It's no secret that in law enforcement, suicides trend much higher than many other professions. There are de-escalation techniques when dealing with somebody who is agitated.
Constables have a lot of tools on their tool belt, many of them will carry a taser, a gun, an expandable baton, but the number one tool on your tool belt better be communication because talking to people, sometimes talking them off of a ledge, is going to be important and probably going to be used.
GILGER: Tell us about some of those moments. Have you been in situations that get really tense where you have to talk people down? Do people ever fight you, refuse to leave?
BLAKE: Yes, people will fight you and then refuse to leave and my philosophy is you can always back out and come back to the situation with more people. I've had training in critical incidents on how to be able to communicate with people who are in a crisis situation. And be able to move their mind and their thought pattern off of possibly saying that they want to kill themselves now. I've had that happen. They want to kill others in their home, in their home, or when they, when they leave, they're going to do harm to themselves. That training for me has been invaluable.
GILGER: What do you want people to know about what you do and why you do it?
BLAKE: You have to remember that you have an individual who can't pay their rent, and although they do need a place to live, we also have an owner who needs to receive money to either pay for that house. I recently was at an eviction where the owner of the home was a retired couple and they had bought that house because they knew their retirement dollars would not be able to carry them through, and the very first people they rented to, it didn't work out for them.
GILGER: So there's always kind of two sides to the story.
BLAKE: There is.