From July through November last year, landlords filed more than 2,000 evictions a month in court across the state of Wisconsin -- a return to pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
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MADISON, Wis. -- From July through November last year, landlords filed more than 2,000 evictions a month in court across the state of Wisconsin -- a return to pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
The numbers underscore what a new push from the Biden administration has highlighted as a continuing problem, one that the pandemic brought to light as evictions were put on hold early in the pandemic, in Wisconsin and nationwide.
Eviction filings in Wisconsin
In 2022, Wisconsin had about 20,000 eviction filings in total -- a rise back to normal after Gov. Tony Evers temporarily blocked evictions in 2020.
While filings often don't lead to a person actually being forced out of their home, particularly while federal relief funds to pay rent are still available to landlords, it does lead to a damaging mark on a renter's record.
When the national moratorium lifted, Fitchburg mother Silvia Rodriguez had to fight back an eviction that would have left her and her daughter homeless.
Other times, it's the push and pull between local landlords and tenants when a tenant decides they aren't satisfied with their current rent and property conditions.
In Columbia County, Cliff Wilkerson got a five-day eviction notice last month, several weeks after he had refused to sign a new lease that would have raised the rent on the property for his mobile home.
"When I looked at it, to me it was a strong arm tactic with the threat of eviction," his son explained.
"The only option I have was to do an eviction because he wouldn't re-sign the lease," his landlord explained to News 3 Now. Many others at the mobile home park, he pointed out, didn't find the rent increase or conditions unreasonable.
Federal push to amp up renters' rights
Whether a tenant or landlord finds themselves in the right or wrong, rights for tenants can often be murky and difficult to navigate.
That's part of why the Biden administration last week unveiled a blueprint for a "Renters' Bill of Rights" designed to implement principles benefitting tenants across federal agencies.
At its core, however, the blueprint is a collection of non-legally binding ideas that may have limited impact on state and local policies. While the principals outline that eviction notices should always be 30 days, for example, Wisconsin law allows for 5-day notices.
"The states and local governments are being encouraged to look at this blueprint," explained University of Wisconsin Law School professor Mitch, who directs the school's Economic Justice Institute. "Despite all of the efforts to provide extra funding, and even slow down and briefly have a moratorium on evictions, there's still, you know, hundreds of thousands of people facing evictions across the country; there are thousands of people in Wisconsin facing eviction every single year."
According to the White House, about 35% of the population are renters, prompting action in the blueprint to look at ways to curb issues like excessive rent increases and equity concerns. The most common violations Professor Mitch has seen in his career include issues that relate to many of the newly-unveiled federal principles, such as the top issues of evictions, security deposit issues, and home habitability. Many of those rights are established in state or federal law, he noted.
"There are rights around what needs to be done in order to evict somebody, there are rights about returning someone's security deposit. And there are rights that say that you have a right to a safe and habitable home."
But the blueprint that pushes some of those rights forward may not mean much yet for Wisconsin, given the state laws that govern much about housing and renters rights currently.
"The current state is that more needs to be done," Prof. Mitch said.
