Eviction filings in Milwaukee, WI fell sharply once Governor Tony Evers blocked the initiation of non-emergency eviction proceedings on March 27, 2020. Compared to equivalent periods in previous years (2012–2016), eviction filings were far below average in March, April, and May. Eviction protections in Wisconsin began to expire on May 26, after which filings increased.
More detail on eviction protections in Wisconsin can be found on the COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard.
* Filings in the last week may be undercounted as a result of processing delays. These counts will be revised in the following week.
Eviction filings in Milwaukee were higher than average in January and February of 2020.1 That pattern reversed in March, and filings by and large ceased in April and May. In a normal April, over 1,000 evictions are filed in Milwaukee. In April 2020, only 15 were filed. Filings increased dramatically in June and July following the expiration of state-wide eviction protections, but then decreased moderately in following months.2
Milwaukee is made up of 298 census tracts. In each of those tracts, we map the number of eviction filings over the last four weeks. If you toggle below you can see these numbers as eviction filing rates—the number of eviction filings divided by the number of renter households in the area—or compared to the typical number of filings in the average year.1 2
American Community Survey (ACS) data allow us to categorize neighborhoods by their racial/ethnic majority: White, Black, Latinx, or Other/None. Most evictions in Milwaukee are filed in majority-Black neighborhoods. In March and April 2020, eviction filings dropped steeply across all neighborhoods, though they increased again after May, exceeding historical averages in majority-white and majority-Black neighborhoods in June and July 2020.
When you toggle the figure to see data relative to average, comparisons are being drawn—within the same set of neighborhoods defined by racial/ethnic majority—between filings in 2020-2021 and average filings in 2012–2016.1
