With less than a month remaining before the Massachusetts eviction moratorium expires, community organizations across the state are pushing for quick passage of the Housing Stability Act.
Groups insist that the bill, currently being considered by the Joint Committee on Housing, is the only way to effectively protect tenants, homeowners and small landlords from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also goes further, and has a longer reach, than the Centers for Disease Control, which has extended its own moratorium through Dec. 16.
State Representative Peter Capano of Lynn, a co-sponsor of the bill, stressed the importance of addressing the housing crisis.
“Working people have been struggling,” he said. “They shouldn’t have to be worried about being thrown out onto the street.”
Capano also added that the leadership is looking at the bill, but that they face many pressing legislative priorities, including police reform and the budget.
The Commonwealth’s eviction moratorium is set to expire Oct. 17, creating the possibility of a “tsunami of evictions,” according to the group, Homes For All Massachusetts. A study by the Metropolitan Planning Action Council said that hundreds of thousands of residents are currently at risk of eviction or foreclosure. Considering the public health danger of throwing people out on the street during a global pandemic, this could potentially cause a surge of new COVID cases, said Lisa Owens of City Life.
Although CDC guidelines extend a federal eviction moratorium until Dec. 16, some advocacy groups maintain that the Housing Stability Act is more effective, long-term and far-reaching than the CDC moratorium, and that it must be passed before the statewide moratorium expires.
Homes for All Massachusetts says that the CDC moratorium “fails to provide the clear, strong protection or path to long-term recovery offered by the Housing Stability bill.” They also say that the CDC measure fails to protect “homeowners or small-scale landlords, and does not address the looming rental arrearages that have accumulated since the pandemic.”
“Our organization began working on housing issues by helping homeowners fight displacement during the foreclosure crisis,” said Isaac Simon Hodes of Lynn United for Change, a core member of Homes for All Massachusetts. “This bill would continue that work by protecting homeowners and tenants alike.”
The bill, proposed by Representatives Mike Connolly and Kevin Honan, would extend the eviction moratorium, freeze rents for 12 months after the conclusion of the state of emergency and prohibit foreclosure proceedings on most homeowners. Additionally, it would establish a fund to assist small property owners who have lost rent income during the pandemic. It does not cancel rents for tenants, and rent bills would have to be paid at a later date.
“We had a housing crisis before the pandemic and we will keep working on addressing it afterward,” said Hodes. “But this bill is an urgent stopgap measure that will take the threat of mass evictions off the table.”
