A new state law allowing some renters to seal their eviction records has spurred thousands of petitions and approvals in Massachusetts housing courts over the last year, lawmakers and housing advocates said Tuesday.
State Sen. Lydia Edwards said nearly 90% of the more than 6,000 petitions for sealing case records of evictions were approved since the law was enacted last May.
“The law is working and people are using it,” Edwards said at a press conference at the State House.
Edwards joined state and Boston housing officials at the event where they emphasized the benefits of the law, approved to remove the stigma and discrimination that eviction cases often create and provide more access to stable housing.
The law doesn’t allow all eviction records to be sealed, a process where records are no longer publicly searchable on paper or through electronic and online sources. But nearly all cases known as no-fault, when a renter has done nothing wrong, qualify for sealing. In eviction cases where a renter failed to pay rent because of financial hardship, their records are eligible to be sealed after four years.
Whitney Demetrius, the director of Fair Housing at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, said eviction records often destabilize a family’s housing.
“The mere existence of a record can lead to exclusion,” she said Tuesday. “We know that the practice has a disproportionate impact on Black and Latino renters, particularly black women who face the highest eviction records and encounter systemic barriers already in the housing market.”
Sophie Gillard, a paralegal with the Greater Boston Legal Services, said her nonprofit hosted dozens of eviction clinics around the city and helped nearly 500 people file petitions in housing courts in the region.
“With these cases removed (from) their records, they have been able to leave shelters, secure accessible housing for themselves and their disabled children and become eligible for subsidies,” she said.
