The number of eviction cases in Denver County Court remained near a record high in 2025.
In 2025, there were 15,953 eviction cases in court, just seven fewer than in 2024, the record year. An untold number of those households are families with children, representing a much larger number of individual people facing housing insecurity.
The rate of eviction cases plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic as the federal government issued eviction moratoriums and offered massive amounts of rental support. But eviction rates began exceeding pre-pandemic norms in 2023.
“The city, the state, the nonprofits, the housing providers, we have not gotten our arms around this problem,” Zach Neumann, head of the eviction prevention law firm that contracts with the city, the Community Economic Defense Project, told Denverite earlier this year. The majority of cases, he said, are for non-payment of rent.
Among the areas tracked by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, 29 cities and states, including Memphis and Miami, saw fewer cases last year compared to 2023 and 2024. Another 15, including Nashville and Austin, saw increases. Some have seen dramatic changes, while others have stayed level.
In Denver, eviction cases remained high, even as rent prices dropped slightly, the vacancy rate rose and landlords struggled to lure people into their buildings by either lowering the rent or offering attractive concessions that effectively cut costs by thousands a year.
Denver offers legal assistance to many renters facing eviction. And eviction assistance is prioritized for those facing a court case.
In some situations, eviction cases don’t actually mean an eviction is imminent. Some landlords file formal eviction cases because it could allow them to recoup money through the city and state’s rental assistance programs. They may not intend to throw tenants out.
But in many cases, tenants fail to go to court and lose their cases automatically. Those who do go to court may be able to get help from government programs that pay back rent — but those programs have been drained in recent years and can’t always meet the demand.
Court data does not tell the entire story. Many families self-evict after landlords ask for overdue rent, rather than going through a court process that could lead to a permanent eviction on their record, according to the Eviction Lab.
