Stop the wave of evictions that starts Saturday

The pandemic and economic damage is going to be with us through this year and into 2021 if not longer. On October 17th, Governor Baker’s executive order on evictions ends. Evicting 60,000 or more people in the middle of the current crisis is wrong and will cause untold human suffering. We are already seeing a glut in rental housing and mass evictions will not just add to that glut.

We support An Act to Guarantee Housing Stability during the COVID-19 (H.5018/S2918) and urge you to call your legislators and tell them to vote for it. This bill replaces the Housing Stability Act (S.2831/H.4878) which this bill replaced.

Our friends at the Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending have put together an email template you can use to contact your state representative and senator. If you don’t know who your state legislators are, go to WhereDoIVotema.com. Type in your address and click the Show my results button. It will tell you who your elected officials are and how to contact them.

The email text is below. Add your own story if you can. It makes a difference. With the legislators NOT in their offices, email is the most direct communication!

Please email House Ways & Means Committee members & your own state Representative. The House Ways & Means member emails are at the bottom. Ask them:

SUBJECT LINE: “Continue Moratorium on Foreclosures & Evictions, save homes AND lives!”

Dear <representative/senator> <name> ,

I am asking you to continue the state’s Moratorium on Foreclosures & Evictions. Pass H.5018: An Act to Guarantee Housing Stability during the COVID-19 Emergency and Recovery. Keep all foreclosure & eviction protections in the bill. More than ever, we need to protect people’s ability to remain in their homes.

Especially during this COVID emergency, people must be able to remain safe & healthy in their homes. The Moratorium has been life-saving. COVID numbers are rising again. Those most likely to die are front-line workers, people of color and seniors. Those paying on over-priced, predatory mortgage loans are even less able to afford them now. COVID has placed all at high risk of foreclosure and eviction.

Even as we are slowly getting the courts to recognize the illegality of almost all foreclosures, asking judges to spend extra time on a deluge of reopened eviction cases is unrealistic. We must protect people’s ability to hold on to their homes and health.

This is my story:

[Insert your story here]

Thank you,

[Insert your Name, Address & Town here]

• If you do not know your own state Representative’s name & email: go to www.WhereDOIVoteMA.com.

Email Committee members individually or put this list in BCC and email all at once.

Email the members of the House Ways & Means Committee (www.malegislature.gov/Committees/Detail/H34 ) listed below and your own Representative

• Chairman Aaron Michlewitz (aaron.M.Michlewitz@mahouse.gov)

• Vice-Chair Rep. Denise Garlick (denise.Garlick@mahouse.gov)

• Liz Malia (liz.Malia@mahouse.gov)

• Thomas Walsh (thomas.Walsh@mahouse.gov)

• Thomas Stanley (thomas.Stanley@mahouse..gov)