Thursday, August 12, 2021
Chairman Keenan, Chairman Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the chair of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts. Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide grassroots advocacy organization that fights for shared prosperity and racial and social justice.
We urge you to give a favorable report to H.1434/S.891: An act to prevent COVID-19 evictions and foreclosures and promote an equitable housing recovery.
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored how important affordable housing is to public health. It’s simple: when we asked people to stay home to avoid the spread of the virus, that could only be possible if they had a home to stay in.
The Legislature recognized this and passed a strong moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, and we are appreciative of all the work that went into that.
Although that moratorium has lapsed, housing instability, economic instability, and the pandemic all remain. Massachusetts has hundreds of millions of dollars of federal rental assistance, but that money often doesn’t reach tenants due to a cumbersome application process. And evictions have been rising.
These bills, known as the COVID Housing Equity Bill, offer a solution. The COVID Housing Equity Bill pensures an equitable distribution of rental assistance funds, pauses no-fault evictions during the COVID recovery period, and requires that landlords pursue and cooperate with rental assistance programs before evicting.
Tenants are not the only ones at risk, and the bill recognizes this. It would pause residential foreclosures and require mortgage forbearance based on federal policies. Owning a home is one of the only paths toward building wealth for communities of color, and we cannot allow the pandemic to make already existing racial and economic inequalities worse.
Every day without this bill, more families in the Commonwealth are put at risk of housing insecurity, and we urge swift passage.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Chair, Issues Committee
Progressive Massachusetts