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Boston City Councilman Benjamin Weber focused his first speech on legal protections for evicted tenants. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)
Boston’s new City Council member is promoting a local initiative to “level the playing field” for tenants facing eviction by providing low-income tenants with legal representation to help them navigate the complex court system. We are promoting a pilot program.
City Councilman Benjamin Weber has proposed a bill that would create a “right to counseling” program in Boston, building on a bill pending on Beacon Hill. The bill would “create a similar program for all tenants in the Commonwealth as a means to support housing stability and prevent crime” against homelessness. ”
Gov. Maura Healey is also proposing to allocate $3.5 million in the state budget to support a statewide Right to Counsel program, which would be used to assist low-income renters and small businesses involved in eviction proceedings. The money will go towards legal representation costs for the owner-occupier, Weber said. the labor attorney said at Wednesday’s city council meeting.
“The eviction process is a complicated process and you really want to hire a lawyer,” Weber said. “The reality is that when people are threatened with eviction, they often face an uneven playing field.”
Weber said the numbers are “absolutely outrageous,” noting that 90.5% of landlords facing eviction for default on payments have legal representation during eviction proceedings in housing court. It cited Massachusetts state court data showing only 3.1% of tenants have an agent.
According to Weber, nearly 25% of tenants default on their housing lawsuits by not having legal representation – by not showing up to court or filing required court documents on time. He is said to have lost the lawsuit. He said that number drops to 5% when tenants are represented by an attorney.
According to Weber’s hearing order, the number of evictions has been at a pre-pandemic level since the end of the federal eviction moratorium that prohibited landlords from evicting non-paying tenants during the COVID-19 lockdown era. It is said that the number has increased to the level of .
His order cites data from Princeton University’s Eviction Research Institute that shows the average number of eviction filings per week increased by 73.8% from 2022 to 2023, from 64 to 111 in each year. It shows what you did.
In Boston, the number of eviction filings has increased by more than 40% in the past year, Weber said, attributing the phenomenon largely to a “housing crisis” brought on by a shortage of units and rising rents, and a disproportionate increase in the number of people of color and single people. He said it was having a disproportionate impact on the Mother’s.
Evictions affect a tenant’s credit score, making it more difficult for that person to get approved for a new housing unit. This contributes to housing instability and depletes city, state and federal resources by increasing reliance on shelter, mental health and other emergency services, his order said.
In the hearing order, Weber said tenant consultation rights programs, which have been established in at least 17 cities and four states, including New York City, do not create “new rights for either tenants or landlords.” Stated.
“This is just trying to ensure that their existing rights are protected,” he said, later adding. “Providing access to lawyers in housing cases has been shown to protect one of our most basic needs: the right to have a roof over our heads.”
In Massachusetts, defendants have the right to an attorney in criminal cases, but not in civil cases.
Councilor Liz Breadon and City Council President Luzsie Louiseune co-sponsored the motion for a public hearing order, which was referred to the Housing Committee.
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