Imagine this: You’re a tenant behind on your rent, facing eviction. You’ve applied for available state aid, though, and have every reason to expect that you’ll receive it. But state bureaucracy moves so slowly that before your application can be processed, you get evicted anyway.
That’s just the scenario lawmakers sought to avoid when they passed a law known as Chapter 257 during the pandemic. It makes little sense to offer help to tenants facing eviction — and, by extension, landlords owed back rent — if processing delays mean that aid can’t actually be used.
Narrow in scope, the law isn’t an eviction moratorium. All it does is require courts to put an eviction case on hold for a “reasonable” amount of time if the tenant has a pending rental assistance application, until the application is either accepted or rejected. If an application is accepted, the landlord gets the money owed and the case becomes moot; if it’s denied, the eviction can go forward.
Unfortunately, the law expired last week. But as long as the state is going to offer aid to stave off evictions, it needs some form of procedural protection like the one that Chapter 257 provided.
Though federal funds are drying up, the state will continue to assist renters through the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition program. The problem now is that the purpose of those state funds — to mitigate eviction risks — is undermined because there’s no guarantee that an eligible tenant will get a chance to access them before getting evicted.
Enshrining a policy of putting an eviction case on hold until a tenant’s rental assistance application is either approved or denied doesn’t create any losers. Indeed, not only would a tenant be less likely to lose their home, but the landlords who are owed arrears would be more likely to get their money back. That’s why many landlords were fine with keeping Chapter 257 in place.
The concern, however, is whether this kind of eviction protection could prolong eviction cases unreasonably. If the state’s rental assistance programs are inefficiently run, with backlogs that overwhelm the system, then landlords shouldn’t be expected to keep waiting around while their own bills, like property fees and mortgage payments, pile up. While Chapter 257 leaves it up to a court to define what constitutes a reasonable amount of time — a fine model — lawmakers should still find a way to assure landlords that they won’t be left on the hook for bills without an end in sight.
That includes providing the necessary funds to streamline the administration of the state’s social programs. It also includes following the city of Boston’s lead, which is to promptly send tenants a notice of their rights, which includes the resources they can use to apply for rental assistance, along with eviction notices. That would help reduce the time a landlord has to wait for their tenants’ rental assistance application to be processed because the tenant would know to apply well before their eviction hearing.
Bills to make this sort of eviction protection permanent have already been introduced in the Legislature. Lawmakers should move quickly to strike the right balance, protecting tenants from eviction and landlords from inordinate delay. Now that Chapter 257 has expired, the longer it takes Beacon Hill to step up, the more likely it becomes that Massachusetts tenants will face completely unnecessary and avoidable evictions. And that’s not good for anyone.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.