Activists wary of evictions safety net
Cases are on the rise in the six weeks since a state ban expired.
DoWTon » New eviction cases for failing to pay rent are on the rise in Massachusetts in the six weeks since a state ban expired, and housing advocates want a stronger response from Beacon Hill given the rise in COVID-19 infection rates and the looming end to a federal moratorium ban.
So far, attempts to remove tenants have taken the shape of a slow-building wave rather than the sudden surge that some feared. Cases were filed in recent weeks at roughly the same rate as before the pandemic, and a federal moratorium will block many evictions from being executed but is due to expire at the end of the year.
But with the pandemic’s second surge in Massachusetts accelerating, community groups and activists are concerned that the state is unnecessarily dangling over the edge of widespread housing insecurity.
“We are right at the beginning of the cliff,” said Lisa Owens, executive director of the City Life / Vida Urbana group that has urged lawmakers to take additional steps. “This is sort of our last opportunity to act.”
The state trial court system received 1,882 newly filed residential eviction for failure to pay rent cases since Oct. 17, when the moratorium that had been in place for nearly six months expired. They trickled in slowly at first, with only 70 in the first two weeks, and then rapidly picked up pace.
Over the past two weeks, cases have been filed at roughly the same clip as before the pandemic: 714 in the week of Nov. 16, and 558 in the holiday-shortened week of Nov. 23. On top of those, advocates estimate there are thousands of other eviction cases that had been filed before the state moratorium took effect that could be on the move once again.
Filing an eviction case is in many cases just an early step in the process, and not all filings will result in forceful removal of a tenant. Many cases cannot proceed to the execution stage until 2021 under a separate moratorium the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued.
Lew Finfer, co-director of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network, said that the year-end deadline — combined with the impending expiration of expanded unemployment supports Congress created — could prove to be a dangerous turning point.
“It’s a bleak situation getting further and further bleaker and moving into a crisis situation as this all mounts up,” Finfer said.
In April, during the first peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill placing a moratorium on almost all nonemergency evictions and foreclosures. The legislation did not exempt tenants from eventually making good on financial obligations, but aimed to keep as many people as possible safely housed during the public health crisis and at a time when jobs losses were high due to forced business closures.
Baker extended the temporary ban once, but he allowed it to expire Oct. 17 and instead unveiled a $171 million plan. The proposal increased the maximum Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) benefit available from $4,000 to $10,000 per household, with $100 million available for the program this fiscal year.
More than 5,800 unique households have received RAFT benefits since April, according to an administration spokesperson. Between June 1 and Nov. 30, the state paid out $15.6 million in both RAFT aid and administrative fees to the regional agencies that distribute the funding.
Baker’s alternative to extending the moratorium drew praise from many real estate leaders and landlords, who have argued that they do not want to cause housing insecurity but sometimes need to use court filings to resolve issues with tenants.