River Bend Eviction Risk: Moderate , Des Moines
Tract 19153004900 · Polk County, IA · pop 1,686 · neighborhood within 0.4 mi
For landlords sizing up the River Bend area of Des Moines, census tract 19153004900 carries a moderate eviction-risk score of 5.4/10. It lands near the 53rd percentile nationally for landlord eviction risk.
About 66% of renters carry a rent burden of 30% of income or higher, a severe level, and 55% are severely burdened at 50% or more. The typical renter pays about $745 a month while the average household earns $38,464 a year, roughly 23% of income at the averages. Renters make up 64% of occupied homes, a renter-majority tract.
Percentile rank
Higher percentile = riskier than more peers.Risk heat across Des Moines and the region
Centroid at 41.6046, -93.6185 · click any tract to drill in
Why River Bend scores 5.3
9 axes · 1 = landlord-friendlyHow River Bend compares
Risk score vs. parent city, county, state.SVI percentile: 99
CDC/ATSDR 2022. Higher = more vulnerable. National percentile across 84k tracts.
- 98%Socioeconomic
- 92%Household composition
- 76%Racial/ethnic minority
- 99%Housing & transportation
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.
- 0%Grade A
- 0%Grade B
- 21%Grade C
- 71%Grade D · redlined
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.
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)
- 410Total filings over 10 yrs
- 5.97%Avg annual filing rate
- 8.9%Peak (2012)
- 35Filings in 2015 (latest validated)
Eviction-adjacent indicators
Crude prevalence of conditions linked to housing loss. Source: CDC PLACES (cwsq-ngmh), 2023 model-based small-area estimates.
- 30.4%Housing insecurity
- 23.4%Utility-shutoff threat
- 45.1%Food insecurity
- 47.1%SNAP enrollment
- 21.7%Transit barriers
- 20.5%No health insurance
- 23.1%Frequent mental distress
- 45.3%Any disability
What drives eviction risk in River Bend
The score leans hardest on economic stress at 6.8/10. 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 Des Moines eviction risk, while the economic and supply signals are measured at the tract level.
Set against its neighbors, this tract scores above the Polk County average of 5.0 and above the Iowa statewide average of 4.3. Within its own county it reads on the riskier side for landlords.
This tract overlaps land the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation redlined in the 1930s, a dominant grade of D ("Hazardous") across 71% of the tract. Redlining cut off mortgage credit to Black, immigrant, and working-class blocks, and those areas still tend to carry higher rent burden and eviction filings today.
The tract is Black and White and ranks around the 99th 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.
For a landlord, conditions here are middle-of-the-road. Standard screening and prompt, documented notices usually keep cases short.
About tract 19153004900
What is the eviction-risk score for census tract 19153004900?
What is the average rent in tract 19153004900?
What is the poverty rate in tract 19153004900?
How socially vulnerable is tract 19153004900?
Is tract 19153004900 considered part of River Bend?
How many evictions are filed each year in tract 19153004900?
What share of households in tract 19153004900 struggle to pay rent?
How does tract 19153004900 compare to Des Moines overall?
Was tract 19153004900 historically redlined?
Highest-risk tracts in Des Moines
Top eight tracts in Des Moines ranked by composite eviction-risk score.