Report finds racial disparity in evictions, calls for right to counsel
06/02/2020
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Massachusetts
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Report
, Housing - Evictions
A report from City Life/Vida Urbana finds that 78% of Massachusetts eviction filings suspended due to COVID-19 are in neighborhoods of color.
The report names right to counsel as one key policy reform, observes that just 8% of Boston tenants have counsel compared to 85% of landlords, and highlights a previous MA study that found that fully represented tenants stay in their homes twice as often as those receiving limited legal services:
A study of eviction cases in District Court in Quincy, MA found that 68 percent of tenants who received limited legal assistance lost possession of their home, compared to only 38 percent of those who received full legal representation.
p. 29, n.36.
