The University of Wisconsin-Madison Researches Renter eviction rates in Milwaukee, WI apartments and rentals. “Eviction is such a common occurrence in the lives of Milwaukee’s urban poor that one renter-occupied household in every 20 is evicted each year, according to research based on an analysis of court records and a year’s worth of sociology fieldwork from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In neighborhoods in which the majority of residents are black, the number jumps to one in 10 renter-occupied households evicted every year, Matthew Desmond, who is expected to receive his doctorate in sociology in May.
The hardest hit are women and their children, whose lives are severely disrupted by such mobility. Eviction, in fact, can be thought of as the feminine equivalent to incarceration, Desmond says. Nearly 60 percent of the 50,538 tenants evicted in Milwaukee County between 2003 and 2007 were female, his research finds.
“The odds of a woman being evicted in black neighborhoods is twice that of men,” Desmond says. “It’s not like that in white neighborhoods. It’s quite stunning.”
Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and professor in UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, says Desmond’s important research will raise awareness about eviction and the factors that might lead some people to homelessness or instability.
“We know an awful lot about foreclosures, but those are people who are more established and own their own homes,” Smeeding says. “We know very little about the same process that takes place with renters, many more of whom are poor… the thing that Matt did is he went in and talked to both the renters and the landlords, and he understands the process very well.”
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