According to data collected by the Tenant Resource Center, a Madison organization that supplies eviction information, support and legal representation to households and individuals, 2,353 unique renter households faced eviction in Dane County last year. For all filings, landlords were represented by attorneys 55% of the time, while tenants were represented 29% of the time. Almost 75% of the Tenant Resource Center’s clients in 2024 spent more than half of their monthly income on rent, and people of color, female tenants and individuals with disabilities were disproportionately impacted by eviction.
Insufficient representation of tenants in eviction hearings can reinforce uneven power dynamics between landlords and renters, and staff at the Tenant Resource Center understand that not everyone in Dane County is equally impacted by eviction.
“Just having an eviction filed against you becomes a barrier in itself and makes it harder to get into housing,” said Jeff LeMessurier, the agency’s housing services program manager. “Most of the time when people are facing eviction, especially in court, it’s because there are other things going on as well—loss of income, loss of a family member, medical issues,” among other life challenges. And once “there’s a court record of an eviction notice filed against someone, especially if it goes to judgment,” he added, there can be a compounding negative effect that “just becomes a cascading thing.”…