housing

Testimony on the Affordable Homes Act

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Chair Edwards, Chair Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic.

Massachusetts faces a growing affordable housing crisis. To rent the average 2-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts requires an income equal to $37.97 per hour, more than twice the minimum wage. Home ownership has become increasingly out of reach, as the state’s median home price has passed $600,000. The high cost of housing has led to displacement, and in a growing number of municipalities, the local workforce can no longer afford to live there.

We are glad to see that Governor Healey recognizes the need to use a variety of tools to address our housing crisis and strongly support the comprehensive approach in the Affordable Homes Act, H.4138.

We were delighted to see the inclusion of key provisions like the following:

Creating a five-year housing plan (which should focus not only on supply but also on affordability to different income levels)
Enabling cities and towns to pass inclusionary zoning ordinances by simple majority—a vital tool for increasing affordable housing supply and diversifying communities
Making it easier to use public land for housing development
Establishing an Office of Fair Housing
Launching a Social Housing pilot program
Authorizing $150M for public housing decarbonization and $115 million for sustainable and climate-resilient affordable housing
Permitting Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) of <900 SF to be built by-right in single-family zoning districts in all communities and prohibiting the parking mandates and owner-occupancy requirements many municipalities use to make ADUs harder to build
Enabling cities and towns to pass real estate transfer fees as a tool to raise money for affordable housing production and preservation
Creating a process to enable individuals to seal eviction records

All of these are essential to a three-pronged approach to the housing crisis: protecting tenants, increasing housing production, and investing more in affordable housing. We can do all three, and this bill does.

However, we would like to outline how to make some of these provisions more accessible and effective as well as some additional measures to consider including.

Real Estate Transfer Fee Local Option

Cities and towns across Massachusetts want to take action to address the housing crisis, but they are often unable to do so without state approval. Seventeen communities have now requested the ability to use this tool, beginning with Provincetown in 2010. In the years since this initial request, circumstances have only become more dire, and more cities and towns have passed such home rule petitions or are actively considering doing so.

Our housing crisis is simply too great to leave funding and financing tools on the table. All communities must be able to use this tool that will allow us to generate additional resources for desperately needed local affordable housing.

To ensure that the transfer fee language in the bill can best meet the needs of diverse cities and towns, we urge the following:

Setting the Right Threshold: Home sale prices vary greatly across Massachusetts, with rural communities and Gateway cities often having property values well below $1 million. They should still be able to benefit from this tool. Similarly, communities should be able to set higher thresholds if that is best for local needs and market conditions.
Maintaining Flexibility: Communities should be able to determine whether buyers or sellers of a property bear fees and should be able to create local exemptions that best apply to their community.
Applying Fees to the Full Transaction: Allowing municipalities to apply fees to the full amount of transactions, rather than only the amount in excess of a threshold, will allow communities with higher needs and sales prices to generate more desperately needed revenue.

Sealing Eviction Records

Regardless of whether one does anything wrong or is actually evicted, being party to an eviction or housing case is being unfairly held against tenants when they try to rent a new place. Even winning in court hurts tenants.

We are delighted to see eviction sealing language in this bill, but we would recommend several steps to ensure that tenants can best be protected:

Ensuring that dismissals, cases that tenants win, and no-fault evictions be automatically sealed by the court as opposed to a petition process which involves extra steps for the court and all parties.
Ensuring that in non-payment cases, tenants can seal after 14 days of paying a judgment and after 4 years if they were unable to pay because of an economic hardship or other good cause reasons.

Ensuring that in a fault eviction, where one must wait 7 years to seal, that an intervening eviction which prevents one from sealing can only be a fault eviction and not just any type of eviction case, such as a no-fault eviction.
Clarifying that the court has the direction to consider disability and domestic violence issues in fault cases and to adjust the sealing process accordingly.

Additional Measures to Include

We join with over 240 organizations to call for the inclusion of Access to Counsel in the Affordable Homes Act. 9 out of 10 tenants are unrepresented in eviction court, leading to higher rates of displacement and community instability. Evictions negatively affect people’s physical and mental health, and result in job loss and decreased school attainment for children. Guaranteeing legal representation to all tenants facing evictions would have a major positive impact.

We also urge you to use this opportunity to repeal the ban on rent control and enable municipalities to enact local rent control ordinances to stabilize housing costs and prevent no-cause evictions. We have been seeing a growing interest in rent control across the Commonwealth, with multiple municipalities filing home rule petitions to be able to take action. Rent control is an essential tool to combat displacement, and cities and towns should be able to pass such policies as fit their local housing situation.

Cities and towns that want to take action should be able to do so, and we urge you to include a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase local option (along the lines of S.880/H.1350), which would enable cities and towns to pass laws allowing tenants to join together to match a third-party offer when their homes are being sold.

We also urge you to use this bill to establish a statewide Foreclosure Prevention Program to require servicers to participate in pre-foreclosure mediation with homeowners to explore alternatives to foreclosures, an idea put forth in S.653 and H.942.

We also urge you to take additional steps to increase our supply of affordable housing, such as by funding and writing into statute the Small Properties State Acquisition Fund, which would provide subsidies for nonprofit acquisition of homes from the market, and by including funding for the production of affordable homeownership units that can be kept affordable in perpetuity. We also urge you to add an affordability requirement to the Housing Development Incentive Program (HDIP) so that public subsidies to development address the need for affordable housing stock.

Lastly, A Technical Correction

We stand with the Massachusetts AFL-CIO in asking you to address a major concern about Section 35 of the bill. As written, this section would remove the application of prevailing wage laws to certain private development projects on public land. We hope that this was a drafting error and such language can be removed. The state should be using public land to both advance housing goals and create good-paying jobs, and these are not in conflict.

Thank you for all your work on this important bill and vital topic.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

housing

Let’s Get Comprehensive Housing Policy Passed This Session

Massachusetts faces a growing affordable housing crisis, and we can see it everywhere in the Commonwealth.

And the only way to tackle that housing crisis is with a multi-pronged approach of protecting tenants from displacement, increasing housing production, and investing more in affordable housing.

Fortunately, Governor Healey’s housing bond bill (the Affordable Homes Act) offers a strong foundation. But it can be improved in key ways.

That’s where you come in. The Joint Committee on Housing is hearing testimony this Thursday on the housing bond bill.

Can you write to the committee in support of a comprehensive approach to the housing crisis?

Here’s what that would mean:

Allowing accessory dwelling units to be built by right in cities and towns across the state in order to increase the supply of housing (already in the bond bill — let’s keep it there!)
A real estate transfer fee local option that is accessible to cities and towns across the state as a way to raise money for affordable housing production and preservation (in the bond bill — but could be stronger)
Creating a process for the sealing of eviction records so that they no longer remain a permanent mark on tenants and make it more harder to secure housing (in the bond bill — but could be stronger)
Guaranteeing access to counsel so that all tenants have legal representation in eviction court (not in the bond bill — but could be!)
Repealing the ban on rent control and enabling municipalities to enact local rent control ordinances to stabilize housing costs and prevent no-cause evictions (not in the bond bill — but could be!)
Establishing a statewide Foreclosure Prevention Program to require servicers to participate in pre-foreclosure mediation with homeowners to explore alternatives to foreclosures (not in the bond bill — but could be!)

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Op-Ed: A New Year’s resolution: Make Mass. affordable

Jonathan Cohn, “A New Year’s resolution: Make Mass. affordable,” CommonWealth, December 28, 2023.

Throughout 2023, we constantly heard elected officials talk about the need for tax cuts to make Massachusetts more “competitive,” pushing a debunked myth that we were about to see an exodus of the well-off due to the Fair Share Amendment and the overall tax landscape. The risk we really face is that our graduates won’t be able to stay here, that young couples won’t be able to make a family here, and that working people will be displaced from one neighborhood to the next before being driven out of the state entirely. All of this is avoidable with good policy.

So let’s hope – and pressure – our elected officials to embrace those policies. And to not give up on a New Year’s Resolution too soon.

Common Start higher ed housing inequality tax fairness

A Recent Win + An Urgent Need for Action

Your Voice Needed: Take Action in Support of Families Experiencing Homelessness

That was the good news — and it’s really good news. But here’s some less good news. Last month, Governor Healey announced that the state would cap the number of placements in the Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelter program and related state-funded family shelter sites due to financial, space, and staffing constraints.After hitting the cap earlier this month, the Administration began implementing a waiting list for families approved for EA shelter, without providing families with alternative safe places to stay.

On November 15, the Legislature ended formal sessions for the calendar year without approving a supplemental budget that would provide critical funding to serve families experiencing homelessness.

With winter rapidly approaching, it is vital for the Legislature to take action.Can you write to your legislators today to underscore the importance of passing such funding and requiring that some of it be earmarked for overflow shelters? Email your legislators

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Rent Control and TOPA are Vital Parts of a Housing Policy Toolkit

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Chair Edwards, Chair Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge a favorable report for S.1299 / H.2103: An Act enabling cities and towns to stabilize rents and protect tenants, S.872 / H.1304: An Act enabling local options for tenant protections, and S.880 / H.1350: An Act to guarantee a tenant’s first right of refusal.

Massachusetts has a lot to offer, but that does little if people can’t afford to live here. The US News & World Report’s annual state rankings put Massachusetts at #45 in affordability. [1] A worker earning minimum wage in Massachusetts would have to work 91 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home at market rate. [2]

Clearly, Massachusetts has an affordable housing crisis. This is unsustainable. It has led to expanding economic inequality, increased homelessness, and damage to our economy, as talented workers often leave the state for less expensive regions.

Solving this affordable housing crisis will require us to use every tool in the toolbox. That requires zoning reform that encourages the creation of walkable, sustainable, and inclusive communities. It requires public investment. And it requires strengthening tenant protections that ensure that communities can remain affordable, inclusive, and stable.

However, municipalities across Massachusetts are blocked from taking the necessary steps to address the housing crisis. The misguided statewide ban on rent stabilization policies and a stringent home rule system that prevents municipalities from passing their own laws to govern the basic aspects of civil affairs hamstring municipalities.

By enabling our cities and towns to pass rent control ordinances tailored to their local needs, we can stem the displacement that is hitting so many communities.

We cannot build our way out of the crisis alone because the people at the highest risk for displacement will already be pushed out before they can benefit from any medium to long-term reduction in rents.

There is a lot of fear-mongering around rent control, but I want to make a simple point. If you don’t think a landlord should be able to double or triple someone’s rent in a year after doing no work on the property, you believe in rent control, and the question is just a matter of percentages and exemptions.

On too many issues, Massachusetts is haunted by the ghosts of ill-advised ballot initiatives past. It’s 2023, and we need to act like it.

Empowering cities and towns to respond to our housing crisis also requires passing the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). The TOPA bill, which is similarly an enabling bill, recognizes that we need to preserve our affordable housing stock. Too often, when large landlords sell a building, a mass eviction or rent hike follows for the tenants. TOPA shows that there is another way: as has been a proven success in DC for decades, we could enable tenants to come together to purchase the building—and be granted the right of first refusal in doing so. It’s a common-sense policy for community stability and affordable housing at no cost to the state.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/opportunity/affordability

[2] https://nlihc.org/oor/state/ma

housing

PM Joins Coalition of 100+ Groups Calling on Legislature to Fund Emergency Assistance Family Shelter

Progressive Mass signed onto the following letter organized by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. You can see the full list of signers here.

October 30, 2023

The Honorable Senate President Karen Spilka
Office of the Senate President
State House, Room 332
Boston, MA 02133

The Honorable Speaker Ronald Mariano
Office of the Speaker of the House
State House, Room 356
Boston, MA 02133

Re: Please Fund Emergency Assistance Family Shelter; Don’t Leave Kids Out in the Cold

Dear Senate President Spilka, Speaker Mariano, and members of the Legislature:

Thank you for your longstanding strong support of children and families in the Commonwealth. We are grateful for your commitment to meeting residents’ basic needs, and especially the needs of the most vulnerable members of our communities.

We write to ask you to urgently provide enough supplemental funding for the Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelter program to enable it to continue to serve all eligible families who are experiencing homelessness at least through January. This would give state leaders time to carefully consider policy solutions to the surge in demand for family shelter. It would also be consistent with the 90-days advance notice that the line item, 7004-0101, requires before eligibility changes are made. Such notice has not yet been provided by the Administration to the Legislature.

There is no greater basic need than shelter from the elements, which is why we are so proud to live in a state that guarantees a right to shelter to eligible children in need. We are keenly aware that the EA system is under great strain at the moment, and you and the Administration are working to develop solutions. In the meantime, however, we are deeply, deeply troubled by the notion that the state may shut shelter doors to new applicants and place eligible families on a waiting list starting this week, on November 1st.

We have seen what happens when families cannot access shelter. Toddlers huddle with their parents on the street. Children are forced to sleep in cars in the bitter cold. Parents and guardians attempt to protect themselves and their small loved ones from inclement weather and physical danger in places not meant for human habitation.

Please appropriate the necessary funds to sustain our shelter system through January, at a minimum, as an interim measure while working to develop a more comprehensive, family-focused response that could be enacted when the Legislature returns from its winter recess.

Sincerely,

housing

What’s in the Governor’s Bond Bill? And What’s Next?

On October 18, the Healey Administration released their proposed housing bond bill, named the Affordable Homes Act.

The bill includes $4 billion in capital spending authorizations, 28 policy changes or initiatives, three executive orders and two targeted tax credits focused on addressing the state’s worsening affordable housing crisis.

The $4 billion in capital spending authorizations includes $1.6 billion for public housing ($150 million of which would go toward decarbonization efforts). You can read an overview of the spending authorizations here, but below we want to focus on a few of the policy proposals that align with legislation we have been supporting.

But first: what is a bond bill? A bond bill is legislation that authorizes the state to issue and sell bonds to fund capital projects and programs. The bond bill contains capital authorizations, which identify programs that can be funded through revenue raised through said bonds. Importantly, a bond bill only authorizes the spending; continued advocacy is necessary for the spending to become a reality afterwards.

But back to the policy overview…

GOOD

Creation of a five-year housing plan

The bill would require the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to prepare a statewide housing plan every 5 years, conducting regional outreach following robust data analysis. Having more intentionality around our housing needs is certainly important.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) As-Of-Right

Many cities and towns across the state have been fighting to pass zoning reforms to allow Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) — small, independent residences built on the same lot as a single-family home — as a way to increase affordable housing stock. The bill would permit ADUs of <900 SF to be built by-right in single-family zoning districts in all communities–in other words, eliminating the need for special zoning ordinances by the city or town to permit them.

The bill would prohibit owner occupancy requirements, which have worked against efforts to desegregate communities. Affordable rental stock is key to having a racially and economically diverse community.

The bill also prohibits parking mandates to ADUs within ½ mile of transit, making them more affordable to build as parking spaces cost money and thus make housing less affordable.

Inclusionary Zoning by Simple Majority

When Massachusetts recently updated the state’s zoning laws to allow cities and towns to approve certain new zoning ordinances by simple majority, this suite of reforms notably did not include inclusionary zoning ordinances, which would require developers to build a certain percentage of affordable units as a part of new construction.

This bill would correct that omission and add inclusionary zoning ordinances and bylaws to the list of zoning changes municipalities can pass by a simple majority in the relevant legislative body (e.g., city council, town meeting).

Surplus Public Land Disposition Reforms

We need to build more housing and more affordable housing, and that requires land to build it on. The bill would help streamline the disposition of land under the control of a state agency or quasi for housing purposes. When the state owns the land, it can also lower the costs of building housing, making it easier to build affordable units.

Establishing the Office of Fair Housing

The bill establishes an office within the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities with explicit focus on fair housing and establishes a trust fund for enforcement initiatives, fair housing testing, education, and outreach. Strong fair housing laws and enforcement ensure that people are not discriminated against in buying or renting a home for reasons of race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, etc.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Local Option Transfer Fee

Cities and towns across the state facing a dire lack of affordable housing have turned toward transfer fees as an option: by imposing a modest fee on high-end real estate transactions, cities and towns can raise money for their affordable housing trusts. Seventeen cities and towns have home rule petitions to do this before the State House, a sign of both the breadth of support as well as the limitations municipalities face in addressing the crisis on their own.

The bill would allow municipalities and regional affordable housing commissions to adopt a transfer fee of 0.5% – 2.0%, paid by the seller, on the portion of sale proceeds over $1M or the county median home sales price, whichever is greater, with the revenue used for affordable housing development.

This proposal is great for Boston, whose transfer fee HRP would apply to property sales over $2 million (on their value over $2 million), but it would limit some of the other HRPs.

For instance, Amherst is interested in a transfer fee, but the median home sale price in Hampshire County is only $427,500. Pushing the threshold up to $1 million would severely limit how much they could raise.

And on Martha’s Vineyard, where all of the towns have been actively lobbying for their Home Rule Petitions given a dire housing crisis, this would push up their threshold to over $1.3 million, again limiting how much they could raise.

Eviction Sealing

Having an eviction record is creating a devastating barrier for tenants looking for housing. Records are created as soon as a case is filed and are publicly available forever–– regardless of the outcome. These records impact people’s ability to obtain housing, credit, and employment, harming many and disproportionately impacting women and people of color. Regardless of whether one does anything wrong or is actually evicted, being party to an eviction or housing case is being unfairly held against tenants when they try to rent a new place.

There’s a clear solution to this problem: sealing eviction records, either immediately in cases of no-fault or for a defined period of time for other cases.

The bill would provide a process for tenants to petition the court to seal an eviction record for (i) no-fault evictions: after conclusion of the case; (ii) solely non-payment evictions: no other eviction action within past 3 years and judgment for underlying eviction has been satisfied; and (iii) all other fault evictions: 7 years from conclusion of the matter and 3 years without any other eviction case filed against the tenant. It would also prohibit consumer reporting agencies from disclosing information in a sealed eviction record.

Although this is a step forward, we should not burden tenants with unnecessary bureaucratic steps to seal eviction records. Rather than enabling them to petition a court, the court should automatically seal records at the given benchmarks, as was the case in a prior iteration of the HOMES Act.

What’s Next?

The bill will have a hearing with the Joint Housing Committee and possibly other committees, and given the history of past bond bills, it may not be finalized until the end of the session. But what that means is that your state legislators need to be hearing from you.

housing

The HERO Bill Can Help Us Tackle Both the Housing Crisis and the Climate Crisis

Testimony in support of H.2894 & S.1799 An Act providing for climate change adaptation infrastructure and affordable housing investments in the Commonwealth from Caroline Bays of Progressive Watertown

Chair Moran, Chair Cusack, and Members of the Joint Committee on Revenue:

Thank you for hearing my testimony.

My name is Caroline Bays and I have been a city councilor in Watertown for 6 years. Over the last few years several things have become clear – we have several existential issues facing us and we cannot address them without your help.

Watertown, like most of eastern Massachusetts, is experiencing a housing crisis that is not going away. It is only getting worse. In just the six years I have been a councilor I have witnessed the city transform from a mixed class city with a wide variety of residents to a relatively rich extension of Cambridge. Our housing crisis extends to both the big A and little a affordable and we are going to have to come up with more innovative ways – and more money – to address the increasingly drastic issues of displacement we are experiencing.

But we have two existential crises facing us. Our city is very concerned about climate change and Watertown has passed a very aggressive climate action plan in our attempt to do our part to address the climate crisis, but in order to get to where we need to be by 2050 we will need money to implement our plan. We have hundreds of action items on our to-do list, and it ranges from comparatively small financial commitments, such as adding more street trees and EV chargers to incredibly expensive commitments such as retrofitting all of our municipal buildings to make them greener and creating a green municipal fleet. We need money for all of it. And it will mean multi-millions of dollars in investment.

The HERO Bill is one low impact mechanism to help generate the money we need to meet our commitments. It is a comparatively small fee but it will generate money that can have a large impact on cities and towns, by helping us to meet our housing and climate goals.

I will be delighted if you pass the enabling act for the transfer fee and I support that bill wholeheartedly, but that will not be enough. We are facing the humanitarian crisis of homelessness and the existential crisis of climate change. Now is the time for action and all of us in Watertown are doing our best to meet these crises, but we need your help. On behalf of my city and others across the Commonwealth, I am asking for your support. I urge you to report H.2894 & S.1799 out favorably so the state can raise the funds which will help our towns and cities do our part to implement the solutions we all know we need.

Thank you for hearing my testimony.

climate housing

Testimony: Tackling Affordability Requires Investment

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Chair Moran, Chair Cusack, and Members of the Joint Committee on Revenue:

We have heard a lot from the Legislature recently about wanting to take action on affordability, as the cost of living in Massachusetts has become increasingly unsustainable for many. However, contrary to recent steps, we cannot tax-cut our way into affordability. We need to invest. And that, of course, requires money.

We urge you to give a favorable report to the following bills:

S.1771 / H.2747: An Act granting a local option for a real estate transfer fee to fund affordable housing, filed by Sen. Jo Comerford and Rep. Mike Connolly.
S.1799 / H.2894: An Act providing for climate change adaptation infrastructure and affordable housing investments in the Commonwealth, filed by Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Rep. Sam Montaño
S.1834 / H.2824: An Act to support educational opportunity for all, filed by Sen. Adam Gomez, Rep. Natalie Higgins, and Rep. Christine Barber

Transfer Fee (S.1771/H.2747)

Our cities and towns need every tool in the toolbox to address our state’s housing crisis, and this bill would provide a crucial one. By imposing a small fee on high-end real estate transactions, communities will be able to provide much-needed funding to affordable housing trusts so that we can preserve and expand affordable housing stock. These bills recognize that each community’s housing situation is different and thus enable cities and towns to craft the proposal that best fits their community’s needs.

Cities and towns from across the Commonwealth have already filed home rule petitions to do this. When our cities and towns want to become places where people can afford to live at every stage of life, the State Legislature should support them, not be a roadblock.

HERO bill (S.1799/H.2894)

This bill offers another tool for responding to our affordable housing crisis and, moreover, recognizes the need for not just affordable housing but green and healthy communities as well.

Initiated by the Housing and Environment Revenue Opportunities (HERO) Coalition, it would raise the deeds excise fee to a value still lower than comparable fees in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont to raise dedicated revenue for climate resilience and affordable housing.

The estimated $300 million from this bill could go toward steps like creating or preserving additional housing for 18,000 working-class homeowners and renters over 10 years; financing hundreds of millions of dollars in competitive, flexible grants to localities for climate resilience and mitigation; or assisting between 3,500 and 6,500 additional extremely low-income families per year with housing vouchers or project-based rental assistance.

Educational Opportunity for All (S.1834/H.2824)

Massachusetts is lucky to be home to many world-class universities. But these large institutions, despite often operating indistinguishably from for-profit institutions, do not have to pay taxes. Given their large footprint, that is a fiscal drain for many communities across the Commonwealth, especially given the fact that such private universities will only ever educate a small percentage of the Commonwealth’s residents.

The endowment of Harvard University stood at over $50 billion last year; MIT, over $20 billion.

These bills recognize that such affluent institutions have the ability to contribute more. They would put a small excise fee on the part of a university’s endowment over $1 billion to create dedicated revenue for a fund subsidizing the cost of higher education, early education, and child care for lower-income and middle-class residents of the commonwealth.

Governor Healey and House and Senate leaders have all spoken about wanting to take action on the exorbitant cost of child care, early education, and higher education, and this bill offers a sensible and dependable way of raising the funds to do so.

Thank you for all your work on today’s hearing, and again, we urge you to swiftly advance these bills.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

education housing revenue

Massachusetts Needs a Right to Counsel

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Chair Edwards, Chair Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:

We see it all the time in polls, we hear it on the doors, and we see it in the data: Massachusetts has a housing crisis. More and more residents are unable to afford to live in our commonwealth anymore, priced out from one community to another and then out entirely, or face severe housing instability.

We need a comprehensive approach to the housing crisis, and strong protections for tenants must be a part of it. We urge you to give a favorable report to S.864/H.1731: An Act promoting access to counsel and housing stability in Massachusetts.

These bills would provide legal representation for low-income tenants and low-income owner-occupants in eviction proceedings. The eviction moratorium that the Legislature passed earlier in the pandemic was a vital lifeline for so many, but eviction filings have now been climbing past what they were in 2019, pre-pandemic. Tenants enter such eviction proceedings at a major disadvantage: according to FY2022 Trial Court data, while 86% of landlords are represented, only 11.5% of tenants are represented. Tenants facing eviction are disproportionately poor, female, and BIPOC, and evictions can have lasting negative impacts on physical and mental health.

Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington have already passed Right to Counsel policies, and Massachusetts should join them.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

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