Communities in central and southeastern Massachusetts saw the highest rates of eviction cases filed in the first year after elected officials allowed a statewide moratorium to expire, according to a new Homes For All Massachusetts report. Image courtesy of Homes For All Massachusetts

In the first year after elected officials allowed a statewide moratorium on evictions to lapse, tenants in neighborhoods where most residents are nonwhite were nearly twice as likely to face eviction than renters in mostly white areas, according to a new report.

Housing advocates have long warned that communities of color face disproportionate burdens from housing insecurity, economic instability, and the COVID-19 pandemic, and a new analysis published Tuesday put specific figures on the scale of the disparities.

While rolling out the Homes for All Massachusetts report at a virtual event, authors and housing advocates said they want to see the legislature inject additional funding in emergency rental assistance programs and embrace controversial ideas such as rent control or local property transfer taxes.

“Our takeaway here is that we really have to act now,” said Eric Robsky Huntley, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology lecturer and one of the report’s authors. “Ensuring an equitable recovery is a critical first step toward securing safe and stable homes for all. In the short term, that has to mean that we make sure that critical emergency rental assistance remains available and that sufficient tenant protections are in place to prevent avoidable evictions. But this also requires a longer-term vision.”

Huntley and other authors representing the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, and Americorps Legal Advocates of Massachusetts examined more than 21,000 evictions filed in state housing courts between Oct. 18, 2020 – when Gov. Charlie Baker and the Legislature allowed the expiration of a temporary state ban on new evictions – and Oct. 30, 2021.

The majority of those cases, about 14,800, involved a tenant’s failure to pay rent and a landlord’s decision to pursue legal action in response.

Real estate and landlord groups have also warned that they endured enormous strain during the pandemic, losing income when tenants are unable to pay rent. In the fall, the Small Property Owners Association told lawmakers that non-corporate owners provide more than half of the state’s rental housing.