Sweeping changes were announced by Gov. Maura Healey last month to the Emergency Housing Assistance shelter system, with families facing homelessness due to no-fault eviction now among other groups receiving prioritization.
Migrant families will now be placed at a “temporary respite center” for five days, followed by a waiting list of at least six months for shelter. With a capacity of 7,500 families and a need that extends far beyond that, the necessity for solutions to our shelter crisis is apparent. And the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is clearly searching for them: Between shortening limits for shelter stays, offering to pay travel expenses for migrant families with alternative places to go and bolstering services to help families exit shelters more quickly, the emergency obviously has no easy fixes.
But this begs the question: Why not end the practice of no-fault eviction and lower the need for emergency shelter among residents to begin with?
No-fault evictions are not the same as other evictions. Most evictions are filed due to nonpayment or lease violations; households facing these evictions are not eligible for shelter and will remain ineligible after the new regulations take effect.
No-fault evictions, on the other hand, can be initiated without reason. A tenant who has paid rent on time, maintained the unit, caused no disturbances and done everything they’re “supposed to do” can still have the rug swept out suddenly from under their feet, solely at the discretion of their landlord, leaving them without housing and with an eviction on their record. From April 2023-2024, no-fault eviction made up more than 12 percent of all eviction cases filed in Massachusetts. Our neighbors in New Hampshire have already banned no-fault evictions statewide.
Obviously, the shelter crisis wouldn’t be solved completely with a ban on no-fault eviction. But no-fault evictions are making up a notable portion of requests for services. The most recently available Quarterly Emergency Assistance Legislative Reports show that in first two quarters of the 2023 fiscal year, eviction and threat of eviction made up 11 percent of all reasons for homelessness for families admitted into the shelter system. In the total year prior, they made up 356 out of 2,756 reasons for admittance, or 12.9 percent. Reducing the demand for shelter by hundreds of households by ending no-fault eviction would at least ease the burden on the shelter system.
Renters are becoming increasingly familiar with no-fault evictions, especially as large investors continue to view Massachusetts housing as a piggy bank rather than a social determinant of health. Between 2004 and 2018, more than 20 percent of residential purchases in Greater Boston were made by an investor, and interest in Greater Boston real estate hasn’t slowed since. Advocates are increasingly sounding the alarm on the trend of investors buying buildings, initiating no-fault evictions and rerenting units at significantly higher prices. At the Community Action Agency of Somerville, our organizers are helping tenants facing that exact situation: After an out-of-state investor bought 22 Sargent Ave. in Somerville’s Winter Hill this year, two of the three units are now navigating no-fault eviction cases in court.
The Affordable Homes Act passed last month created a process for tenants to seal no-fault eviction records, which is a big step forward for tenant protections. But record sealing doesn’t address the most immediate challenge for tenants facing no-fault eviction: moving. As of July, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Boston was $4,414 per month, according to apartments.com. Getting a no-fault eviction means a family must be able to cover first and last months of rent, a security fee and increasingly often a broker fee – or $17,656 in total – to find housing. Not to mention also paying moving expenses or affording lost wages from time off work. It should come as no surprise that no-fault evictions are contributing to homelessness.
Massachusetts cannot sustainably allow investors to continue contributing to the shelter emergency for the sake of their own returns. As it stands, no-fault evictions are allowing landlords, especially investors, to destabilize households and pass the expense off to the Massachusetts Emergency Housing Assistance system. The governor declared a state of emergency for shelters a year ago, yet our legislators have ignored the cause of more than 1 in 10 shelter cases that they have the power to address. Migrants and vulnerable families are paying the price. It’s time for Massachusetts to join states such as New Jersey, California, New Hampshire, Oregon and Washington and pass just cause eviction laws.
The Community Action Agency of Somerville has been the City of Somerville’s federally designated anti-poverty agency since 1981. Its mission is to help local families and individuals achieve financial security while working to eliminate the root causes of economic injustice. Information is at caasomerville.org.
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So what you want to do is legalize squatting?
If a lease term ends, the owner is under zero obligation to renew.
This is the kind of thing that it is absurd we don’t already have but it likely won’t happen any time soon because it interferes with the profits of the already extremely wealthy and primarily benefits poor people. Our legislature is completely uninterested in enacting those kinds of policies and would prefer to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
Since landlords are allowed to raise the rent to any amount they choose, how is this supposed to work? If the landlord raises the rent substantially, and the tenant does not pay that amount, wouldn’t this then be an at-fault eviction?
Actually no, Jerry, a no-fault eviction specifically does NOT include non-payment or lease violations by the tenant. If the rent goes up, and is not paid then that is a non-payment and doesn’t use the no-fault eviction rules.
Most no fault evictions happen because of properties changing hands while the building is occupied and under lease, often because of the new owner/property speculator deciding they are going to do major renovations, pull a flip and skip or want to turn the property into another use (or simply to occupy the property themselves). This also happens in the case of at-will residents who only have a month by month lease in lower value properties.
They can also be abused by landlords who decide a tenant is ‘unacceptable’ because they feel they could be making a lot more by raising the rent during mid-contract or the lease or that decide to discriminate based upon other events (political affiliations, religious affiliations etc.). This does happen in other places and we need to prevent it from happening here.
We need no-fault evictions to be ended in the current housing crisis in this state. They exist only as a tool of the exploiters of the system.
Those situations can all be turned into at-fault evictions by simply raising the rent significantly. As for evicting someone in the middle of lease, that is already covered by existing rental laws. I’m still not seeing how this will help many people.
Seems like this needs to be coupled with rent control
As usual, buzz words attract attention but the devil is in the details.
If you have a lease and you have not violated it, you should not be able to evict your tenant without cause. Is that what we’re talking about banning? If so, ok.
If we’re saying that tenants without a lease cannot be evicted, well now things are dicey. What if they refuse to sign a new lease? Are you stuck in limbo?