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Neighborhood · Ranked #15,522 of 84,120 nationally

Mertz Eviction Risk: Moderate , Mobile

Tract 01097001502 · Mobile County, AL · pop 1,214 · neighborhood within 1.2 mi

Tract 01097001502, home to 1,214 residents in the Mertz neighborhood of Mobile, scores 4.9/10 for landlord eviction risk. That is riskier than roughly 37% of the 84,120 US census tracts we score.

Rent eats 30% or more of income for 30% of renter households, a high level, and 7% are severely burdened at 50% or more. Average rent runs $565 a month against an average household income of $21,900 a year, roughly 31% of income at the averages. Renters make up 79% of occupied homes, a renter-majority tract.

Risk score
5.7
Moderate
Confidence 100% · 1–10 scale
Household mix · 100 hh
Burdened renters 24% Stable renters 55% Owners 21%
Tract context
Occupied units276
Renter share79.0%
SVI overall0.76
Poverty rate58.9%
Median income$21,900

Percentile rank

Higher percentile = riskier than more peers.
Within neighborhood
67 th percentile
Rank, 67th percentileLowHigh
#2 of 4 tracts In Mertz
Elevated
Within parent city
88 th percentile
Rank, 88th percentileLowHigh
#10 of 78 tracts In Mobile
High
Within county
93 th percentile
Rank, 93rd percentileLowHigh
#11 of 135 tracts In Mobile County
Very High
Within state
89 th percentile
Rank, 89th percentileLowHigh
#156 of 1,436 tracts In Alabama
High
Geographic context

Risk heat across Mobile and the region

Centroid at 30.6569, -88.0688 · click any tract to drill in

Why Mertz scores 5.7

9 axes · 1 = landlord-friendly
Local political climate
Inherited from Mobile
4.5
Regional political climate
2024 county presidential margin
4.4
State political climate
Alabama legislature & governorship
1.8
Economic stress
58.9% poverty · this tract
10.0
Supply constraint
$565 rent vs county FMR
1.0
Rent control risk
Inherited from Mobile
1.0
Eviction process difficulty
State law sets the calendar
3.5
Tenant organizing strength
Inherited from Mobile
3.0
Housing court bias
Inherited from Mobile
3.0

How Mertz compares

Risk score vs. parent city, county, state.
Mertz risk score vs. parent city / county / stateThis tract: 5.75.7This tracttract 001502Mobile: 2.82.8Mobileparent cityCounty: 4.34.3Countyavg tract in countyState: 4.14.1Stateavg tract in state
CDC Social Vulnerability Index

SVI percentile: 76

CDC/ATSDR 2022. Higher = more vulnerable. National percentile across 84k tracts.

Historical context · 1930s redlining

HOLC grade: D: Hazardous (Redlined)

This tract sits within an area graded by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation in the 1930s. Grade D meant Black, immigrant, and poor neighborhoods systematically denied mortgage credit. These designations suppressed minority homeownership for generations and remain a documented predictor of present-day eviction filings and rent burden.

Source: Mapping Inequality (americanpanorama.org), 1935-1940 HOLC residential security maps, aggregated to 2020 census tracts by area share. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Eviction filings

Court-record eviction history

Court-validated eviction filings collected from county clerks and consolidated by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. Filing rate is filings per 100 renter households.1

Historic baseline (2000–2018)

  • 426Total filings over 10 yrs
  • 9.32%Avg annual filing rate
  • 30.4%Peak (2001)
  • 33Filings in 2016 (latest validated)
Filings by year 2001 to 2016
Year-by-year eviction filings in tract 010970015022001: 150 filings (30.36/100 renter HHs)2002: 84 filings (17.00/100 renter HHs)2006: 9 filings (2.28/100 renter HHs)2007: 21 filings (5.32/100 renter HHs)2008: 7 filings (1.77/100 renter HHs)2009: 50 filings (12.66/100 renter HHs)2013: 26 filings (5.99/100 renter HHs)2014: 30 filings (6.91/100 renter HHs)2015: 16 filings (3.69/100 renter HHs)2016: 33 filings (7.25/100 renter HHs)
Filings dropped 78% over the past 10 months.
Comparable tracts

Census tracts with similar eviction risk

Within Mertz. Closest by Eviction Risk Score.

CDC PLACES 2023 · health & economic stress

Eviction-adjacent indicators

Crude prevalence of conditions linked to housing loss. Source: CDC PLACES (cwsq-ngmh), 2023 model-based small-area estimates.

Analysis

What drives eviction risk in Mertz

What moves this score most is economic stress at $1/10. That part is specific to this tract, computed from its own rent, income, and poverty figures. Statewide and court-level factors such as eviction-process speed and rent-control exposure are inherited from Mobile eviction risk, while the economic and supply signals are measured at the tract level.

Set against its neighbors, this tract scores about the same as the Mobile County average of 4.9 and above the Alabama statewide average of 4.5. Within its own county it reads on the riskier side for landlords.

The tract is predominantly Black and ranks around the 76th percentile nationally on the CDC Social Vulnerability Index, a measure of how exposed residents are to housing and economic shocks. High vulnerability tends to track with higher eviction-filing rates when rents climb.

In CDC survey modeling, about 41.4% of adults here said they could not pay rent or mortgage at some point in the past year, and 34.7% faced a utility shutoff threat, a common early warning before a filing.

For a landlord, conditions here are middle-of-the-road. Standard screening and prompt, documented notices usually keep cases short.

Frequently asked

About tract 01097001502

Q1

What is the eviction-risk score for census tract 01097001502?

Census tract 01097001502 in the Mertz neighborhood scores 5.7/10 (Moderate tier). The Eviction Risk Score blends state law, county filing rates, parent-city politics, and tract-specific rent-to-income ratios + poverty signals.
Q2

What is the average rent in tract 01097001502?

Median gross rent is $565/month (ACS 5-year 2023, table B25064). 30% of renter households are cost-burdened.
Q3

What is the poverty rate in tract 01097001502?

58.9% of residents in tract 01097001502 live below the federal poverty line (ACS B17001, 2023). Population: 1,214.
Q4

How socially vulnerable is tract 01097001502?

CDC Social Vulnerability Index ranks this tract in the 76th percentile nationally. Sub-themes: socioeconomic 95th, household 37th, minority 100th, housing 32th.
Q5

Is tract 01097001502 considered part of Mertz?

Yes. Per Census Bureau 2020 Block Assignment Files, the plurality of blocks in tract 01097001502 fall within Mertz (neighborhood centroid within 1.2 miles, OSM data).
Q6

How many evictions are filed each year in tract 01097001502?

Princeton Eviction Lab recorded 426 eviction filings across 10 validated years in tract 01097001502 (2000-2018). The average annual filing rate is 9.32% of renter households, peaking at 30.4% in 2001. Source: Eviction Lab tract-validated 2024 release.
Q7

What share of households in tract 01097001502 struggle to pay rent?

About 41.4% of adults in this tract reported housing insecurity (could not pay rent or mortgage in the past 12 months), per the CDC PLACES 2023 model-based small-area estimate. 34.7% also reported utility shutoff threats, a frequent precursor to eviction filings.
Q8

How does tract 01097001502 compare to Mobile overall?

Tract 01097001502 scores 5.7/10, higher than the parent city of Mobile at 2.8/10. City-scale signals (state law, local rent controls, court bias) are inherited from Mobile eviction risk; what makes this tract different are its tract-specific economic stress and supply-constraint sub-scores.
Q9

Was tract 01097001502 historically redlined?

Yes. This tract sits inside an area graded by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation in the 1930s, with a dominant grade of D. 18% of the tract's area was rated D ("Hazardous"), the redlined tier. HOLC redlining systematically denied mortgage credit to Black, immigrant, and working-class neighborhoods and remains a documented predictor of present-day eviction filings, rent burden, and homeownership gaps. Source: Mapping Inequality (americanpanorama.org), Robert K. Nelson et al.
Sibling tracts

Highest-risk tracts in Mobile

Top eight tracts in Mobile ranked by composite eviction-risk score.

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