Boston Housing Support Stations
We Believe Housing is a Human Right.
We are a coalition working together to fight displacement and eviction during the COVID crisis and beyond. This effort has resulted in a rich collaboration among the NuLawLab, the City of Boston Artist-in-Residence program and Office of Housing Stability, Maverick Landing Community Services, City Life Vida Urbana, Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Suffolk University Legal Innovation & Technology Lab, Eastie Mutual Aid, Ropes & Gray, and Runcible Studios to introduce “housing stability stations” throughout Boston neighborhoods. The stations are designed to provide local residents with access to two things:
(1) computers, internet access, and printers; and (2) law student volunteers who can help them use that technology to access the various government and non-profit programs that are making money (and other resources) available to secure housing stability in the wake of the pandemic. Our first technology station is set up at Maverick Landing Community Services in East Boston. This means that we will provide the technology and support needed for those that do not have access to computers that are needed to fill there most important tenant form available online through MADE: Massachusetts Defense for Eviction. MADE is a free tool to help tenants fill out their answer and discovery to strengthen their eviction defense in court.
Our first cohort of law student volunteers are busy working their way through over 100 individuals who have sought out our help. Another cohort of students are set to join the effort in the summer of 2021, when we introduce a one-credit experiential learning component to Northeastern University School of Law’s “Housing Law” course.
Our History
Our coalition is building on what we have learned through our collaboration on a project known as Stable Ground. Since 2017, our Stable Ground project has been addressing the complex relationship among chronic housing insecurity, its psychologically traumatic impact, and municipal housing policy through a participatory community-based art and cultural program structured to inform the work of the City of Boston's Office of Housing Stability (OHS). This project began as a residency program that embedded artists, legal designers, and trauma experts into community settings that hosted local visual/performing arts exhibits and art-making events.
The cross-sector team formed by the Stable Ground initiative was funded by two rounds of grants by The Kresge Foundation’s Arts & Culture program. The second phase of Stable Ground was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our engagements with resident artists continued, allowing them to respond locally to the housing crisis brought about by the pandemic. With in-person arts and culture programming suspended, we re-directed the remaining funds towards a new eviction response collaboration in East Boston. This aspect of our work became known as Stable Ground: Boston Housing Support Stations.
This aspect of our work together began in 2020 and it is a collaborative project that responds to the coming wave of mass evictions as a result of COVID-19 economic instability and Boston’s ongoing housing crisis by providing residents who are experiencing housing insecurity with the technological access and legal knowledge to defend themselves against eviction. Each Eviction Defense Terminal is designed to provide users with a laptop, printer, list of resources, and access to the legal tools necessary to defend against eviction.