Mayor Michelle Wu announced a new initiative Jan. 23 to protect families with children in the Boston Public School system facing eviction. The initiative, the Access to Counsel Pilot Program, will provide eligible families with emergency rental assistance, legal representation and housing search services.
“Over 90% of landlords in housing court have attorneys and less than 5% of tenants have attorneys,” said City Councilor Ben Weber. “Being provided with an attorney has been shown to give tenants extra time so they don’t wind up on the street or in homeless shelters.”
FamilyAid, a nonprofit organization that works to prevent family homelessness, connects eligible families to housing attorneys from Greater Boston Legal Services.
“Our goal is to get early intervention so as families are getting notices or concerns from their landlords, the attorneys from Greater Boston Legal Services can step in to help the tenants realize that they have certain rights and that landlords have certain legal responsibilities in terms of how the eviction process works,” said Larry Seamans, CEO and President of FamilyAid.
In the FY25 budget, Governor Maura Healey allocated $2.5 million towards launching the Access to Counsel Program. Prior to this initiative, defendants in housing court weren’t provided with legal counsel if they were unable to afford it.
“It’s an added level of support for families who are struggling with eviction,” said Seamans.
In BPS schools, families are required to report their housing status. If a teacher suspects one of their students is experiencing homelessness or threatened with eviction, they contact their school’s designated ‘homeless liaison,’ who then reports to FamilyAid.
FamilyAid then works with the family to prevent their eviction, through landlord mediation and job search assistance.
Boston ranks fifth among the 30 largest cities for family poverty, with a rate of 13.7% in 2023, according to data from FamilyAid and the City’s Early Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Program.
However, Seamans said many of the City’s poverty statistics don’t include families who move in with each other due to financial issues. With these families accounted for, Seamans estimates there are approximately 10,180 homeless parents and children in Boston.
Seamans said the prevalence of family evictions is a combination of Boston’s high poverty rate and high cost of living.
“When you add the two of those things together, it is very difficult for working parents, especially single mothers, with a child or more than one child, to make ends meet,” he said. “Many of the families make choices between feeding their children, paying their utilities or paying their rent, and when they make choices for their children, many families get behind on their rent or utilities, which then prompts their eviction.”
A representative for Greater Boston Legal Services, who receive grants from the Access to Counsel Program to work pro-bono, emphasized the timeliness of the Access to Counsel Program in an email to The Daily Free Press.
“Boston is facing unprecedented housing challenges, including an extreme lack of affordable housing and many people unable to afford the cost of living now. We’re at a tenuous time for a lot of households and their ability to avoid evictions and homelessness. This pilot comes at a pivotal moment,” the GBLS representative wrote.
Weber, who represents District 6, supports the program because he said it allows families more time to relocate and saves the City money by not having to use public resources.
“By focusing narrowly on that population of families of school aged kids, we’d be able to save public resources that would be spent on bussing and homeless shelters and protect our most vulnerable people, children, from having to go through an eviction,” he said.
