HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2190        FILED ON: 1/20/2011

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2394

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

Robert F. Fennell

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act to provide additional protection to local housing authority residents and local housing authority property from entry by persons after being forbidden as trespass.

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PETITION OF:

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2190        FILED ON: 1/20/2011

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2394

[SIMILAR MATTER FILED IN PREVIOUS SESSION
SEE HOUSE, NO. 2216 OF 2009-2010.]

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the Year Two Thousand Eleven

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An Act to provide additional protection to local housing authority residents and local housing authority property from entry by persons after being forbidden as trespass.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

Section 1.   Chapter 121 B of the Massachusetts General Laws is hereby amended by striking Section 32 C in its entirety and inserting in its place the following:

Section 32 C  Local housing authorities may prohibit access to public housing developments a person who is not a member of a tenant household has, on or near a public housing development or a subsidized housing development:

(a) caused serious physical harm to a member of a tenant household or employee of the landlord or any other person lawfully on the premises of the housing authority;

(b) intentionally and willfully destroyed, vandalized, or stolen property of a member of a tenant household or of the landlord or any other person lawfully on the premises of the housing authority;

(c) intentionally and willfully destroyed, vandalized, or stolen property of a member of a tenant household or of the landlord or any other person lawfully on the premises of the housing authority and attempted to seriously physically harm a member of a tenant household or employee of the landlord or any other person lawfully on the premises of the housing authority;

(d) possessed or carried a weapon in violation of section 10 of chapter 269 or possessed or used an explosive or infernal machine, as such as defined in section 102A of chapter 266 with the exception of fire-crackers or violated any other provision of section 101, 102, 102A or 102B of said chapter 266;

(e) unlawfully sold or possessed with intent to distribute a controlled substance as established as Class A, B, C, or D in section 31 of chapter 94C; or

(f) committed or threatened to commit a battery upon a person or damaged or repeatedly threatened to commit damage to the property of another for the purpose of intimidation because of the person’s race, color, religion, or national origin or on account of the person’s participation in an eviction proceeding; the landlord of such premises may bring a civil action for injunctive or other appropriate equitable relief in order to prohibit the person from entering or remaining in or upon the public or subsidized housing development, unless there is cause to believe that such unlawful conduct is unlikely to continue or to pose a serious threat to the health or safety of the development, the tenant households at such development, or the employees of the landlord.

Whenever a tenant or member of a tenant’s household residing in a public or subsidized housing development has caused or threatened to cause harm to another tenant, an employee of the landlord, or any other person who is known or believed to be a witness in an eviction against the tenant, the landlord may bring a civil action for injunctive or other appropriate equitable relief in order to protect the witness from harm threatened by the tenant or member of the tenant household.

Nothing in this section shall be read to limit the civil and criminal remedies otherwise available under section thirty-nine of chapter two hundred and sixty-five or section one hundred and twenty-seven B of chapter two hundred and sixty-six.

Local housing authorities may prohibit access to public housing developments or remove persons from public housing developments who have undertaken the herein stated conduct by personally communicating to said person or persons by a police officer or other person in charge thereof a request to leave the premises.

Whoever knowingly, regardless of his or her intent, enters or remains in or upon the premises of a public housing development and defies an order not to enter or remain upon the premises of the public housing development or subsidized housing development that was personally communicated by a police officer or other person in charge thereof shall be subject to the penalties as stated in M.G.L. Chapter 266, Section 120.

A person who is found committing such trespass may be arrested by a sheriff, deputy sheriff, constable or police officer and kept in custody in a convenient place, not more than twenty-four hours, Sunday excepted, until a complaint can be made against him for the offence, and he be taken upon a warrant issued upon such complaint.