There are almost 13,000 court ordered evictions each year in Kentucky.

A majority involve families with children.

Advocates say those children can suffer negative physical and mental health outcomes, and can even find it difficult to secure housing once they become adults.

A new database launched by Kentucky Youth Advocates is tracking evictions across the state, and it has the backing of a state lawmaker who plans to present a bill she says will reduce the long term consequences of evictions.

We know that evictions in general impact Kentucky kids pretty significantly, and their families most evictions involve at least one child.

Across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

And when evictions happen, we know that it causes instability for the child.

It can create pressures around access to nutritious food, access to education, access to health care.

So it has a ripple effect across the entire family and across what children have access to in order for them to be safe and stable.

Representative Whitten will be filing a bill for the 2026 legislative session that is, related to expunging eviction dismissals.

So if somebody gets an eviction filed against them but it doesn't, it's not completed because it's, addressed otherwise and somebody doesn't actually experience an eviction that still stays on the record.

So allowing for eviction dismissals, dismissals to be expunged can ensure that there is more access to housing for families.

And then we also know that right now, minors are being identified on those evictions.

And we know that, one that shouldn't be happening.

And and really oftentimes the intent is not to name minors, but sometimes that happens.

And right now there's no mechanism to remove their names.

It's so important to make sure that we don't put up unnecessary barriers for Kentuckians, and especially containing Kentuckians with small children, to have access to, to, you know, affordable housing.

This has been really narrowly crafted, to, to not, burden the, the, the, the landlord in any way.

He they have every right to, if they are, owed past rent or anything like that, they still have that ability to do so.

The hope with this eviction dashboard is that it creates opportunities for individuals to talk to their policymakers, especially their state legislators, about that, what they're seeing in their community and in their district when it comes to families who are facing eviction, the prevalence of eviction, and opportunities to make some changes to the way that we support families when it comes to housing and an increase, create more access.

Want to ensure, you know, what Representative Whitten had talked about is making sure that there's enough supply, right?

Because that's really important.

We are short on units, but also making sure that we have some really common sense measures that are not creating unnecessary barriers for families to access housing.

We really think that we've we've walked through it and, and have vetted it.

And so we're really we're really proud of the language.

And we really think that it's, it's just good legislation that needs to pass this year.

And you can view the Eviction Data dashboard and learn more information about evictions at the web address on your screen.