COVID-19

HFF Legislative Priority 6: Right to Counsel in Evictions

Homes for Families Advocacy, COVID-19, Housing & Homelessness, Legislative Priorities (2021-2022), Policy Focus , ,

 An Act promoting housing stability and homelessness prevention in Massachusetts (S. 874 & H.1436) 

COVID-19 has further exacerbated the housing crisis by increasing the threat of evictions for low-income families. Without an eviction moratorium in place, there is no telling how many evictions would have been filed, but estimates are in the hundreds of thousands, and maybe even a million. Now that the eviction moratorium has expired, evictions are about to come roaring back because tenants have no protections and have not fully recovered from the pandemic.

While tenants may try to fight their eviction case in court, fewer than 10% of tenants are able to obtain legal representation. In contrast, 80% of landlords are represented by legal counsel. This imbalance favors landlords and often results in unjust evictions. Most evictions happen very quickly and with complicated procedural rules, which means a majority of these tenants are forced to navigate this complex process on their own. Landlords often take advantage of this and file meritless eviction cases, knowing that they are more likely to win in court.  

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WHAT WILL A RIGHT TO COUNSEL BILL DO?

Senator DiDomenico, along with Rep. Rogers, and Rep. Day have filed a bill in both the House and the Senate that will establish a right to counsel for eviction cases. Bills S.874 and H.1436 will ensure low-income households have access to resources, including full legal representation in eviction cases, which will promote housing stability and prevent homelessness. This will be executed with a pilot Right to Counsel program.  

How does the Right to Counsel Program Work?  

The Right to Counsel Program is administered by the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC). MLAC provides free and full legal assistance and representation with state funding by contracting not-for-profit organizations. This may include legal advice, advocacy, and assistance associated with representation, including the filing of a notice of appearance on behalf of the eligible individual. To qualify, individuals must receive certain public assistance benefits, have an after-tax income that is 80% or less of the area median income (AMI), or be unable to pay for legal representation without impacting life necessities.

The MLAC will provide a form that will notify individuals of their eligibility for a right to legal counsel in eviction proceedings. However, if an eligible tenant or occupant does not receive an approved form or the legal counsel does not have time to file a response, legal assistance must be obtained for the lawsuit to continue. This ensures that tenants and owner-occupants will not be forced to default and accept eviction due to the limited timeline. Furthermore, MLAC will put together an advisory committee that consists of low-income tenants, community-based organizations, statewide advocacy organizations, municipal officials, and others committed to housing stability.  

This is an emergency law and is necessary for public safety in preventing homelessness, overcrowding, and displacement; therefore, this act will not be deferred and will be put into effect immediately if passed.  

BRIEF HISTORY OF BILL 

In 2021, both Connecticut and Washington passed right to counsel bills for eviction cases, and cities like New York City, Louisville, Cleveland, and Los Angeles have invested in tenant representation and implemented RTC programs successfully. According to Cleveland’s RTC interim report, 93% of their RTC clients who faced eviction were able to avoid displacement, and other cities with similar programs have a 75 to 85% success rate. New York City reports that their eviction rate declined about 30%, and 84% of the represented tenants were able to win their eviction cases in a 2019 report. HFF believes a RTC program will ensure families in Massachusetts will have long-term stable housing through the pandemic and after.  
 

Eviction Help 

If you are currently fighting an eviction without legal assistance, please refer to Greater Boston Legal Services’ Massachusetts Defense for Eviction (MADE) for self-guided eviction help HERE. This completely free guided interview is for Massachusetts tenants who are being evicted. It is estimated to take between 25 and 90 minutes for a typical tenant to use on their own. It will help you make sure that you respond to your landlord’s eviction case correctly. 

HOW CAN YOU HELP? 

  1. Write/call your elected officials.   

You can find your State Representative and Senator HERE. These elected officials work for you, and it is immensely important that they hear from their constituents about what you want them to do as your representative. Here is a script you can use to email or call your representatives: 

Dear Representative/Senator [NAME],  

My name is [NAME] and I am Emailing on behalf of [ORGANIZATION]. I live in your district and wanted to talk to you about a piece of legislation that is crucial to helping end family homelessness in Massachusetts. This bill is incredibly important to me and I would really appreciate your advocacy around, especially by co-sponsoring the bill.  

On any given night in our state, 18,471 people experience homelessness, a number that has more than doubled since 1990, and over 12,000 of them are in families with children. Since 2007, no other State in America has seen a larger increase in family homelessness. It doesn’t have to be this way! There are concrete laws that can be passed that will drastically transform Massachusetts into a State where homelessness really is brief, rare, and non-recurring.  

As your constituent, here is the bill I’d like you to co-sponsor and support: HD.1436/S.874: An Act promoting housing stability and homelessness prevention in Massachusetts. This bill will ensure low-income people have access to resources, including full legal representation in eviction cases. 

Sincerely, [NAME] 

2. Use social media!  

Follow HFF on Twitter and Facebook to learn more about RTC. Tweet directly at your Representatives and Senators! 

View Factsheet Draft: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEhnbF8D0g/7p6DtsUr8FtmMrTto4bogw/edit 

For more information, visit The Massachusetts Right to Counsel Coalition website: 

ACLU Tenant’s Right to Counsel Article: 

Boston Bar Association RTC Report 

Promoting Resilience and Self Care During The COVID-19 Crisis

Homes for Families COVID-19, Resiliency & Self Care

In the need of some positive ideas for how to boost resilience for yourself, your staff and/or families you work with during these challenging times? Inspired by the domains of resilience diagram below, Homes for Families’ Policy Action Team shared some examples of how their family shelter agencies are building resilience.

HFF’s Policy Action Team-inspired examples for building resilience within the family shelter setting (these are examples from different family shelter providers and partner agencies, that are a part of our policy action team, many of which are descriptions of practices happening currently within family shelters):

  • Creating an overall level of emotional flexibility within congregate (family shelter) settings where tensions tend to run high, even on a good day.
  • Case managers are really trying to bring and provide some emotional space in their approach and in their actions, allowing families to feel the way that they feel, without any level of judgment and giving leeway around repercussions – recognizing everyone has these feelings, anxieties and it’s ok to feel the way.
  • For staff and participants, finding ways for them to feel power within their own lives again. The whole situation makes people feel powerless, and when talking about survivors of Domestic Violence (DV), especially, who have already experienced so much loss of power, talking about what they want to do, planning ahead, looking forward to stuff, thinking of things to do in the house, and sometimes doing those things with them, all can help. This includes: safety planning around what if I get the virus.
  • At our congregate shelter, we do a check in: in the morning and at night (optional of course and physical distancing is observed). We are in one big meeting space where folks can be spread apart and we create space for families to share what they hope will happen that day and how they are feeling on that day. At the end of day, they can reflect on how the day went and how they are feeling about the day now (it’s simple but provides a space for productive and kind interactions, amidst
    sometimes explosive, tough behavior under these circumstance).
  • Especially for kids, the emotional piece is important: this is a huge change to what life looked like before, so to help them do activities where they can get out their energy but control their own bodies. So you can do high energy activity and then calm activity to follow. It helps them learn they can be safe in their space and gives them a chance to connect with grownups, while helping them learn how to regulate their own bodies, and navigate big feelings.
  • Being able to have open conversations within an agency, across levels of staff (e.g. from mid or front line staff speaking to supervisors and CEOs) where staff express how they are feeling and can be honest about the challenges right now. One Policy Action Team member shared an example where one person finally opened up to leadership and said how much they were struggling. And eventually, it opened up to a lot of conversation. What hit the most was to hear our leadership tell us it is perfectly natural to re-define what “our best” is. Doing “our best” needed to be re-defined. “It was a really healing phrase. “
  • For leadership to be caring for staff and make sure any group meeting, includes a self care piece, so staff know what can be provided.
  • Supporting staff during this time, means putting in hazard pay (increased compensation) for staff on the front lines.
  • Sending, via text or other virtual methods, simple notes of appreciation to families, to staff.
  • Having extra compassion and flexibility with each other.

Homes for Families sees building resilience during this challenging time, as directly connected to promoting trauma informed care. As a partner at our April Community Meeting shared, promoting trauma informed care during this time can be as simple as having extra compassion and flexibility with each other.

We are grateful to be connected with all of you, the Homes for Families network of providers, families, advocates and partners. You hold a wealth of knowledge, insight, love and compassion that we hope to continue to draw out. We’ll be sharing ideas and practices we need in order to bring our best selves to the table for each other and families facing housing instability and homelessness at this time.

Liz and Team HFF

Promoting Self Care and Resilience1

We’ve created a shareable pamphlet with these self-care and resiliency tips.

Find it here: HFF Promoting Self Care and Resiliency Tips.