MADISON, Wis. — Dane County continues to experience a high number of evictions. The county has far surpassed its total filings from 2019, which was 2,015, according to the Wisconsin Eviction Data Project.
Through October of 2023, Dane County has had 2,128 eviction filings. The state’s court system shows an additional 163 in November and 135 in December, through Dec. 19.
“Evictions in Dane County are so high that the court added another half day to the calendar to hear eviction hearings,” Tenant Resource Center Executive Director Hannah Renfro said. “This was intended to be a temporary solution for about three months to get through a backlog, but the last we heard from the court is the additional day of hearings will continue indefinitely.”
The county is home to several colleges and universities, including Madison Area Technical College, Edgewood College and UW-Madison, the state’s largest public university. Dane County’s Tenant Resource Center staff has noticed the increase in evictions within the community, but not as much within the student population.
“When there is an eviction, we have an actual court filing and public records,” Renfro said. “Frequently with students, they don’t know what their rights are and there isn’t even an eviction filing that comes out of that.”
Eviction data among the student population is difficult to track in Dane County for that reason, Renfro said. College students often opt to move in with parents or friends during times of housing struggle. The Tenant Resource Center has offices at two colleges in Madison: Madison Area Technical College’s Goodman South campus and UW-Madison.
“We have a lot of Spanish-speaking students who come to the Madison College office and we have bilingual staff there,” Renfro said. “We also have a lot of community members who come into that office too because of its location.”
Claire Allen runs the office at UW-Madison every Tuesday from 10 to 4. She’s been staffing it for nine months as a housing counseling specialist.
“For a lot students, their first time renting is in college,” Allen said. “Lease questions, roommate conflicts, security deposit questions, options to end a lease if it’s not working out,” Allen said. “Questions about landlords not addressing repairs, that’s a big one.”
She said despite a constantly busy campus, she typically only gets about 10 students coming in with housing questions.
“We would love to see more,” she said. “Having stable housing is so critical to their success as students.”
Allen added that the stigma that often surrounds housing insecurity can make people fearful to ask for help. Echoing the same sentiments as Renfro, she also said the majority of students are unaware of their rights.
“It’s just possible that you’ve never been empowered to know what those are and that’s what we exist for,” she said. “Housing counseling doesn’t do advocacy, but we are here to answer questions about tenant rights and responsibilities, as well as other resources within the community to help tenant/landlord-adjacent issues.”
The UW-Madison office is also staffed on Thursdays during that same timeframe. Madison College’s office is staffed on Saturdays from 10 to 2.
“One of the things we also keep in mind is UW-Madison has a lot of international students and I talk to them quite frequently,” Allen said. “That can add another level of complication to housing situations that are already complicated.”