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State lawmakers negotiating bills that would offer moratorium and tenant protections. BROCKTON — Landlords have filed close to 100 new eviction cases in the city’s housing court since the coronavirus reached Massachusetts, a practice that’s motivated state lawmakers to draft new bills aiming to protect renters and homeowners who fall behind on housing payments during […]

The Massachusetts House and Senate have advanced bills that would halt evictions and foreclosures as the coronavirus shutdown continues. But by Friday the two chambers couldn’t agree on a final version — and now the measure goes to a conference committee of six lawmakers to hash out differences over the days ahead. Since the state’s […]

The pandemic has exposed big holes in the country’s social safety net, openings that millions of people are now falling through. With nearly 10 million people filing unemployment claims in the past two weeks alone, the federal government is mounting an unprecedented emergency expansion of that safety net for workers… “My hope is that we […]

A burst pipe in your apartment needs emergency work, and you want to ask a court to force the landlord to take action. In the age of the coronavirus, like nearly every other segment of local life, the state’s court system now features additional pandemic-related obstacles to addressing such a problem. Local legal technologist Quinten […]