Nearly three in 100 Holts Summit renters faced eviction in 2016, according to data from Eviction Lab.
That's the highest rate in the county - not counting Mokane, whose one evicted renter represented 3.33 percent of the total renting population. These never-before-seen figures comes from the first online, nationwide, public collection of eviction data.
Eviction Lab is a product of Princeton University, according to its website, evictionlab.com. It's the brainchild of Princeton sociology professor Matthew Desmond, who started studying eviction and poverty in 2008.
"Today, the majority of poor renting families in America spend over half of their income on housing costs, and eviction is transforming their lives," Eviction Lab's intro states. "Yet little is known about the prevalence, causes, and consequences of housing insecurity."
The site collects more than 10 million data points into one place, with tools such as a searchable map and information including the percentage of rental housing, rent burden (the percentage of income people pay on rent) and more.
In 2016, the most recent year available, Fulton's eviction rate was 1.18 percent, New Bloomfield's 1.06 percent and Auxvasse 1.16 percent. By comparison, Jefferson City's was 1.64 percent in the same year. Among Missouri's small cities, Spanish Lake (located just north of St. Louis) ranked highest at 14.3 percent.
On the whole, county eviction rates have dropped over the last five years.
Mokane residents have the highest rent burden in the county, with 50 percent or more of renters' household income going toward keeping a roof over their head. Kingdom City's rent burden was second-highest, at 32.5 percent. Kingdom City tenants also pay the highest median gross rent in the county, at $932 per month.
Auxvasse and Holts Summit were nearly neck-and-neck at 29.5 and 29.8 percent, respectively, while New Bloomfield's rent burden was lowest in the county at 24.2 percent - despite having the second-highest median gross rent ($761).
Previous Fulton Sun reporting uncovered the difficulty of finding a tenant lawyer in Callaway County. In fact, in 2017, no Fulton lawyers represented tenants.
Attorney and William Woods University legal studies professor Cynthia Kramer said last year that most people who rent property lack a single necessary element in hiring a lawyer.
"The problem is money," she said. "Landlords can pay (for a lawyer). Tenants can't."