Eviction filings in the county rose 34 percent over the past year, reaching the highest level since Groundwork began tracking court data in 2021.
The increase is not evenly distributed. A single ownership group, operating under nine different LLC names, filed 1,840 of the roughly 11,000 cases logged so far this year, according to a Groundwork analysis of docket data obtained from the court clerk.
Tenant attorneys say the filings often proceed even when back rent is a matter of a few hundred dollars, because the fee to file outweighs the cost of pursuing payment plans directly.
"It is cheaper for a landlord to file than to negotiate," said Marcus Webb, a staff attorney at the county's tenant legal aid clinic. "The court fee is fixed. Their staff time to negotiate is not."
County court administrators say they are reviewing whether to expand a pilot mediation program that has, in early cases, cut filings that reach a judgment by roughly a third.