By SAJE Staff

Thursday, October 1, 2026

We’re thrilled to share that a state bill SAJE sponsored to standardize eviction data reporting was signed into law by Governor Newsom on September 28.

Authored by State Senator María Elena Durazo (SD 26), The Eviction Court Data Transparency Act (SB 1160) requires all 58 of the state’s County Superior Court systems to report information on filings and outcomes for unlawful detainer cases, aggregated by ZIP code, once per quarter. This will ensure lawmakers have critical information about the hundreds of thousands of evictions filed each year across the state, helping California embrace a truly data-driven homelessness prevention policy. 

We know that evictions are a leading driver of homelessness in California, and that the state spent nearly $1.5 billion to combat homelessness last year. Unfortunately, policymakers responsible for this spending have lacked critical information about the outcomes of hundreds of thousands of evictions filed each year across the state. For years, we haven’t actually known the outcomes of more than half of the eviction cases filed in the state of California. SB 1160 changes that for good.

SAJE Director of Policy and Advocacy Kyle Nelson worked tirelessly along with the coalition to advocate for SB 1160, testifying before lawmakers in Sacramento, authoring the report A Civil Injustice: The State of Eviction in California, 2010–2024 and publishing an op-ed in Cal Matters in support of the bill. Nelson actually filed his first California Public Records Act (CPRA) request for statewide eviction data back in 2016, and has been involved in multiple attempts to advance this legislation since 2020. 

Now, a decade later, the legislation finally passes through the tireless stewardship of Nelson, Senator Durazo, the bill’s co-sponsors Western Center on Law and Poverty and What We All Deserve, and a coalition of 89 different organizations and municipalities from across the state. As part of the negotiation process to advance the legislation, the state’s Judicial Council will have until 2033 to develop the technology needed to effectively implement the bill statewide. By 2034, all 58 jurisdictions of the state’s County Superior Court system will be publicly and permanently reporting on eviction data.

Now, it’s on us to ensure that SB 1160 gets sufficiently funded since its implementation depends on appropriations. California must commit to collecting data that is necessary to create policies to keep tenants housed, and so coalition members will remain vigilant around ongoing budget advocacy.

Kudos to all involved in advancing this urgently needed legislation!