With state-wide tenant protections set to expire at midnight on October 17, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says he will propose an ordinance to the City Council on Monday granting new protections for renters facing eviction.

The measure would require landlords notifying a tenant of their intent to evict to also provide information on city and state resources that could help the tenant avoid eviction, including rental assistance funds, tenant rights and recourses and nonprofit programs aimed at helping renters stay in their homes.

The ordinance would largely duplicate similar measures passed by City Council in 2017 as part of a Boston home rule petition, known as the Jim Brooks Stabilization Act. That measure was signed by Walsh but stalled on Beacon Hill.

That inaction means that Boston must proceed with measures that can be enacted without state approval, Walsh said Friday.

“If the state had acted two years ago residents today would be in a better position,” Walsh said at a press briefing outside City Hall.

Walsh also used the announcement to address potential opposition from landlords and the city’s real estate interests, who have opposed other tenant protection measures taken up by Walsh and the City Council.

“We are listening to property owners and working on solutions for the challenges they are facing as well,” Walsh said.

Among the city’s measures to help protect tenants, Walsh pointed out, is a city-funded rental assistance fund, which puts money directly into the hands of landlords.

The mayor also addressed, for the second time this week, rising COVID-19 infection rates across Boston, and which have put the city in the “red zone” of communities in which residents are at higher risk of contracting coronavirus.

On Monday, Walsh announced that the city would not be entering the second part of the state’s “Phase 3” reopening, meaning entertainment venues like theaters will remain closed and other indoor venues, like gyms and restaurants, must remain at limited capacity.

"What we’re seeing in these last couple of weeks is a little bit of up and down,” Walsh said, noting that the citywide positive test rate for COVID-19, now hovering just below four percent, was under two percent just a few weeks ago.

“What we don’t want to see is we get to that four percent number, and four turns to five and five turns to ten … and all of a sudden the things we’ve done to contain the virus are gone and we’re back at square one,” Walsh said.


After a week of gloomy announcements, the mayor did offer some cheer by way of a gift he said he received from members of a church in Robertson County, Kentucky, who — apparently after an appearance by Walsh on national television — sent a care package of several dozen hand-made face masks, and a letter saying the mayor and city were in the community’s prayers.

“It was just really nice,” Walsh said.

“It seems lately that it’s all doom and gloom and tough situations … The fact that this church in Kentucky thought of Boston, and said we’re going to make some masks and send them over to Boston, it’s gratifying.”