Sasha
Sasha came to CLA in early 2018. A single mother of three children, ages 11, 13, 15, she had recently relocated to Worcester in order to provide a more stable upbringing for her children. She sought help from CLA after an incident in her new apartment building in which several maintenance workers entered her apartment without permission and refused to leave. Not only did the incident frighten her children, it triggered Sasha’s PTSD, which had been caused by a violent incident in her past. After the incident, she had trouble sleeping, became hypervigilant, and suffered from panic attacks.
After the landlord denied her request to allow another adult to stay overnight temporarily in the apartment with her as a reasonable accommodation, Sasha decided that her best option would be to move. However, her new apartment fell through shortly before her scheduled move date. In an attempt to harass and intimidate her, her landlord filed an emergency complaint in Housing Court against her, seeking to quickly remove her from the apartment, rather than following well-established eviction procedures. The Housing Court properly dismissed the case.
Sasha filed two complaints against the landlord at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), the state agency tasked with enforcing state and federal anti-discrimination laws. In those complaints, Sasha alleged that the landlord discriminated against her by improperly denying her request for a reasonable accommodation for her disability, and retaliated against her by filing the emergency complaint in court. With CLA’s advocacy, Sasha and her former landlord reached a settlement agreement in 2020, one component of which will require the landlord’s management and staff to attend fair housing training so that other residents will avoid unwarranted housing discrimination.
Sasha has now moved with her children to a place where she feels more secure. She has been able to return to her studies at Quinsigamond Community College, where she is majoring in criminal justice, and she was recently inducted into her school’s chapter of the National Society Leadership and Success: Sigma Alpha Pi. Sasha said, “I want to say thank you to CLA for all its support in this traumatic event… I hope and pray that survivors and victims will come out to the open and report abuse against them as well! Thank you for helping me be heard. Every voice counts.” After completing her studies, Sasha plans to become an advocate for trauma survivors and victims.
Community Legal Aid, Inc. (CLA) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to providing free civil legal services to eligible clients in Central and Western Massachusetts. CLA, in conjunction with the City of Worcester, runs the Worcester Fair Housing Project (WFHP), and this case was litigated with funding from a Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). WFHP’s mission is to eliminate housing discrimination in Worcester County through education, outreach and enforcement activities. WFHP invites anyone in Worcester County who feels that they have experienced housing discrimination to call (855) CLA-LEGAL or apply for assistance online at www.communitylegal.org/apply-online.
