Vernon Parish, Louisiana Eviction Risk: Low

Vernon Parish scores 2.6/10 (Low risk) across its 9 tracked cities, placing it at rank 50 of 64 parishes in Louisiana, meaning 49 parishes carry higher eviction risk and only 14 are more landlord-friendly. For investors weighing markets across the state, that positioning puts Vernon Parish firmly in the lower-risk third, a relatively stable operating environment despite a parish-wide poverty rate of 20.4% and an average rent of $996.

The intra-parish range runs from 2.1 to 3, a spread wide enough to matter. That gap signals that the parish average alone should not drive site selection; individual city conditions vary considerably, and a low county score does not guarantee a low-risk block. With a renter share of 70% across the parish and an average rent burden of 26.6%, the tenant base is predominantly renting but not severely cost-stressed by national standards, which tends to correlate with steadier payment patterns.

The cities inside Vernon Parish

Leesville is the clear outlier at 3/10, the highest score in the parish, and is also the second-largest city with a population of 5,495. That combination of elevated risk and market size means landlords concentrating holdings in Leesville face meaningfully different conditions than the parish average suggests. Fort Polk South, the largest city at 7,869 residents, scores 2.3/10, as do Fort Polk North, New Llano, and Rosepine.

Anacoco and Hornbeck each score 2.9/10, while Pitkin, the smallest city in the dataset at 489 residents, posts the lowest score in the parish at 1.9/10. Risk is genuinely hyper-local here: Leesville reads nearly twice as risky as Pitkin on a common scale. Investors targeting the lower end of the risk spectrum should weight smaller communities outside the Leesville core.

State-level laws that apply here

Louisiana eviction laws state law sets the procedural floor for every eviction in Vernon Parish. Under the Louisiana eviction process, landlords must serve a 5-day notice for non-payment of rent or a lease violation before filing, and a 30-day notice for end-of-term, no-cause terminations, per La. R.S. § 9:3251 et seq. An uncontested matter typically resolves in 14 to 30 days; a contested case can run 30 to 90 days. Louisiana eviction laws requires no just cause to terminate a tenancy and preempts local rent control, so there are no city-level caps or extra notice requirements to track within the parish.

On Louisiana eviction costs, filing fees run $170 to $300, sheriff lockout fees add another $50 to $175, and attorney fees range from $500 to $3,000 depending on complexity and whether the matter is contested. Landlords should budget against the higher end of those ranges when modeling contested-case scenarios.

With a poverty rate of 20.4% and a renter share of 70%, Vernon Parish's tenant pool is large relative to owners, but the parish's low-risk positioning in Louisiana eviction laws means the city-level breakdown above is the most actionable data point for site selection.