Housing advocates make last-ditch efforts to lift ban on rent control, extend COVID-19 eviction moratorium
Housing advocates rallied on the steps of the State House on Monday in a last-ditch effort to lobby lawmakers to lift the ban on rent control, extend a coronavirus-era eviction moratorium and call for passage of other amendments included in a monster economic development bill.
“We are in a housing and health emergency, but we have been in an emergency since long before COVID,” said Lydia Lowe of the Chinatown Community Land Trust, who works to help connect low-income people with affordable housing.
Lowe was joined by advocates from 10 housing groups. It could be their last chance at change as the clock runs low on the current legislative session.
Somerville City Councilor-at-large Kristen Strezo called housing “one of the most prevalent struggles” in the region and said housing stock shortage coupled with job losses since the COVID-19 pandemic, has sent the crisis spiraling “out of control.”
A coalition of 10 housing advocacy groups including City Life/Vida Urbana rallied on the State House steps on Monday to push 6 progressive housing amendments they say will increase equity. The amendments are pitted against Gov. Charlie Baker’s long-south Housing Choice bill that aims to reduce the voting threshold needed for local zoning changes from two-thirds to a simple majority, which he says will help communities build more high-density multi-family housing.
The groups warned in a statement that it would be “unconscionable” to approve only the governor’s zoning reforms without balancing it with their amendments.
The amendments lifting the ban on rent control, creating a right to counsel during eviction proceedings, creating a right of first refusal to purchase for tenants facing no-fault evictions due to the sale of homes or buildings, creating a local option to levy a transfer fee to fund affordable housing, improving access to state identification for the homeless and passage of the COVID-19 Housing Stability Act, which would freeze rents and extend a current moratorium on evictions and foreclosures for one year after the coronavirus public health emergency lifts.
Housing advocates held their Monday press conference amid a sea of tents and canopies that crowded the typically wide-open sidewalk in front of the State House. Movomiento Cosecha activists have been camping out in front of the State House for 11 days demanding state legislators pass legislation allowing the 410,000 undocumented immigrants living in Massachusetts to obtain drivers’ licenses.
The request is another of the 499 amendments crowding what critics are calling a “hodge-podge” economic development bill.
“These Left-Wing lawmakers see this as an opportunity to pass major legislation through an amendment. They see the desperate situation millions of Massachusetts residents are in and view it as leverage to move their agenda forward. That’s the only reason they take unrelated topics on an economic recovery bill. It’s dishonest,” said Paul Craney of Mass Fiscal Alliance, a right-leaning policy and budget organization.
It’s unclear if lawmakers will have time to vet and pass the bill in both branches before the end of the formal session on Friday.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2CT7Etx
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