Harvard Yard Eviction Risk: High , Cambridge

35% are severely burdened past the 50% mark. That cohort absorbs no shock: one repair bill or one cut shift converts straight into arrears. Set annual rent against average income of $69,440 and the ratio lands at 50%, above the conventional 30% ceiling.

95% of occupied units are rented, so comparables are plentiful and vacancy risk is low, but a mispriced renewal loses the tenant to a building nearby. Cost burden runs 56% here against 43.0% across Middlesex County. The dominant input is local political climate at 9/10.

On the high side, rent-regulation exposure reads 8.5/10. Sitting well above the midpoint, eviction-process difficulty reads 8.5/10.

The poverty rate is 29%. Judgments in high-poverty tracts are collectible far less often than filing counts suggest. The filing record is not thin: 33 evictions over 5 years of observation. The worst year on record was 2014, when 0.7% of renter households were served.

This ground was mapped D ("Hazardous") on the 1930s HOLC security maps for Cambridge. That grading determined who could get a mortgage, and its imprint on tenure and rent burden is still visible in the ACS data above. In a typical year about 0.5% of renter households face a filing. That is riskier than roughly 100% of the 84,120 US census tracts in this model.

Social vulnerability reads 5.3/10 on the CDC index, a measure of exposure to housing and economic shocks.

All figures here are ACS 5-year estimates for this tract, refreshed as the underlying releases land.