Beacon Communities’ decision to file more than 100 eviction cases against residents during a pandemic is unconscionable (“Eviction cases roil life at a Hyde Park complex,” Page A1, June 22). Other property managers in Boston have not responded to the crisis in this way. Why has Beacon?
The article quotes a city housing official who says the affordable-housing operator was trying “to get the attention of residents who weren’t responding,” and the reporter writes that “in a sense, it worked.”
I do not want to live in a city in which landlords use notices to quit to get the attention of tenants. Such a practice is inhumane. Even when someone does not ultimately lose their housing, receiving a notice to quit causes intense stress and long-lasting emotional harm, and leaves a permanent mark on the person’s record that affects their future ability to find housing.
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At Georgetowne Homes, many tenants and their children are experiencing these harms at the hands of Beacon right now. They are responding by seeking legal support and other forms of assistance and by organizing, all to fight to stay in their homes. That many of them thus far have been able to stay in their homes is a result of their fight.
Hilary Rasch
Boston
The writer is a volunteer tenant organizer.
