About the Campaign
Due to Covid-19, we expect a far higher number of eviction cases to be filed in court once the eviction moratorium ends. Landlords who are seeking to evict their residential tenants for non-payment of rent can file their Summary Process cases in either District Court or Housing Court. While Housing Court has court staff called dispute intervention specialists to assist the parties, there are no court personnel in District Court to help landlords and tenants reach voluntary agreements to prevent homelessness.
MetroWest Mediation Services (MWMS) fills that void through providing mediators at all Summary Process sessions in the Framingham, Concord and Natick District Courts. Summary Process mediations are challenging and highly emotional cases because many of the tenants have no money and nowhere to go if they are evicted. Tenants can rarely afford attorneys while the landlords are often represented by counsel. This creates a situation where the landlord has more power than the tenant. As these are civil cases, the court is not required to provide counsel even though landlord-tenant law is complex and can result in tenants being evicted as soon as 10 days after the hearing. A Housing & Urban Development study listed mediation as one of the most promising homelessness prevention activities. Part of the mediators’ job is to make sure that the parties deal with each other as equals despite different levels of understanding about the law.
MWMS is the only mediation agency approved by the Trial Court to offer housing mediations in MetroWest District Courts. Without MWMS, landlords and tenants would have no opportunity to mediate their cases. Over the past two years, MWMS has mediated over 100 Summary Process cases, helping over 350landlords and tenants reach agreements on back rent, move out dates, neutral references, condition and/or repair of the rental property, and evictions after foreclosure. In the last ten years, MWMS completed 984 summary process and landlord-tenant mediations, with more than 60% reaching agreements. According to MA Dept. of Mental Health studies, mediated agreements are more durable than adjudicated resolutions and the compliance rate of mediated agreements is very high.
The following quote from Judge David Cunis illustrates the need for mediation in the MetroWest District Courts: “There remains a pressing need for mediation services at the Framingham-Natick District Court… As First Justice of the Framingham-Natick District Court, I cannot stress enough our dependence on the essential services that MWMS provides to us. We continue to depend on MWMS to assist us with our summary process and supplementary process cases, and, in particular, our enormous small claims caseload, which continues to grow unabated. Mediators from MWMS do a tremendous job, week in and week out, in assisting us in resolving these important and often difficult cases.” Judge David Cunis, First Justice, Framingham-Natick District Court, January 9, 2019