There was a time during the COVID-19 pandemic when it seemed Massachusetts had at least partially cracked the complex code of evictions and displacement. For about seven months, new eviction filings were halted altogether. When they resumed, there were far fewer evictions than there had been prior to 2020.

Those days are gone.

In the absence of rental assistance programs that doled out funds to tenants who struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic and their landlords, eviction filings have steadily climbed over the last year. A report out this week from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, a quasi-public state housing agency, shows that new filings have outpaced pre-pandemic levels for 15 consecutive months through October 2023, the last month for which data was available, increasing 29 percent over a two-year period.

To continue reading the rest of the article, please click on the source link below:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/18/business/evictions-pandemic-relief-massachusetts/