A long-predicted “terrible tidal wave” of evictions will finally slam Massachusetts next week when a federal ban preventing landlords from throwing nearly 19,000 renters who stopped paying amid the pandemic expires, housing advocates warn.
“People say there hasn’t been a tsunami of evictions but this is what it looks like. It’s been more like a slow avalanche,” said Andrea Park, a housing and homelessness Mass Law Reform Institute. “But we are looking at a really terrible tidal wave in the next six months to a year.”
The Biden administration announced Thursday it has no choice but to allow a nationwide ban on evictions to expire Saturday. A White House statement said President Biden would have “strongly supported” an extension as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus spreads, but argued that their hands are tied after the Supreme Court signaled the moratorium would only be extended until the end of the month.
It means millions nationwide will suddenly become vulnerable to eviction. Roughly 3.6 million people said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.
In Massachusetts, landlords have filed 18,984 evictions cases since the state moratorium expired last October. They have been on hold due to the federal ban, but those and another 10,000 pre-existing cases can resume when courts open next week.
Park said another 28,000 Massachusetts homeowners are more than 90 days behind on their mortgages putting them at risk of foreclosure. Forbearance programs protecting thousands more are also coming to an end, she said.
Local housing advocates say the last hope to keep scores of renters and homeowners who fell into arrears amid the pandemic off the streets is the COVID-19 Housing Equity Bill filed by state Sen. Pat Jehlen, D-Somerville, and sponsored by more than 70 lawmakers.
In a July 21 letter, a group of more than 80 housing advocacy groups urged Gov. Charlie Baker and legislative leaders not to let promises to address “economic disparities and systemic racism exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic … ring hollow.”
“If our Commonwealth does not take action to protect against the displacement of groups disproportionately harmed both by the pandemic and by evictions and foreclosures: people of color, lower-income and working class households, and frontline and low-wage workers,” will suffer, the letter said.
On Friday, advocates plan to rally at 10 a.m. in front of the State House to urge quick passage of the bill that will buffer pandemic evictions and foreclosures.
Baker did not take questions during a brief appearance on Thursday morning, but he has repeatedly touted his $2.9 billion plan to spend more than half of the remaining federal American Rescue Plan Act funds as one solution for the region’s various housing needs.
