With aid drying up, advocates fear wave of evictions (The Boston Globe)
The Boston Globe quoted Massachusetts Law Reform Institute Staff Attorney Andrea Park (pictured above) in an Oct. 12 article examining the impact of waning COVID-era relief funds and legal protections for tenants. New rental assistance requirements and fewer available funds have led to an uptick in eviction filings. Below is an excerpt from the article.
—The most drastic change to rent relief is the one Bertelson faced: the requirement tenants receive a Notice To Quit.
Legally, notices are not enough to boot tenants from their homes, said Andrea Park, a staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. Yet most are threaded with strong legalistic language that threatens eviction. As a result, she added, some tenants leave their apartments in fear, rather than staying put and fighting.
Park said the state failed to consider how requiring the notice could trigger other problems, such as the impact on tenants’ credit scores and their ability to secure housing in the future.
“There’s this perception that it’s just a letter,” she added. “But that’s underselling the power of the NTQ.”
Read more in The Boston Globe.
