Eviction filings in Wisconsin fell sharply once Governor Tony Evers blocked the initiation of non-emergency eviction proceedings on March 27, 2020. Eviction protections in Wisconsin began to expire on May 26, 2020, after which filings increased.
A closer look at eviction filing patterns in Milwaukee County is available here.
Filing counts in some counties for baseline years may differ slightly compared to court-released aggregates in Wisconsin. In particular, Chippewa, Douglas, Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Marathon, Rock, St. Croix, and Waukesha Counties are slightly underestimated in at least one of the three years compared to court aggregate data, while Eau Claire and Outagamie Counties see overestimates. Please see here for more information on our validation procedures.
This plot shows monthly eviction filings in Wisconsin were higher than average in January and February of 2020. That pattern reversed in March, and filings over the past 12 months. Filings are displayed relative to average filings for the same set of months across 2023 and 2024 (the “baseline”). You can toggle the plot to display filing counts.1 2
Get the data for this figure
Eviction filings by defendant race/ethnicity and gender
There are often large racial/ethnic and gender disparities in eviction risk. Here, we estimate the demographic characteristics of those filed against for eviction over the past 12 months. We compare to data from the ACS that show the share of renters in the same categories.1
Share of eviction filings
Share of renters
Wisconsin is divided into 72 counties. In each of those counties, we map the number of eviction filings over the past 12 months. 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 county—or compared to the typical number of filings in 2023–2024 (the “baseline”).1 2
On map, we also plot the location of the top 100 eviction hotspots in the county (see above). Hover over the circles to see more information about filings from these locations.3
Get the data for counties in this figure Get the data for top filers in this figure