SPOA President Lenore M. Schloming '59 contended at the Monday hearing that the law will better landlord-tenant relations.

"Living rent-free does not help solve tenants problems, they eventually will move out," she said, adding that other problems such as bad credit may follow them.

Further, she added, the weight it would place on tenants is less than that currently placed on landlords.

"This bill will encourage landlords and tenants to find solutions and avoid long vicious litigation which help no one," Schloming said.

The Opposition

Despite the landlords' contentions that the bill would only penalize fraudulent tenants, tenants' right advocates argue that the bill renders all tenants mute in courts.

Rep. Jarrett T. Barrios '90 (D-Cambridge) responded to Schloming's remarks and the entire bill with reservations at the Monday hearing.

"What you're doing with this legislation is taking the right away from the tenant to dispute the rent they're escrowing," he said. "It seems a radical departure from what I know as Justice in this country."

Most tenants agree than SB 541 would make it economically infeasible for them to bring many cases to court.

"It's the only instance where people must pay to have their claims heard by court," says Cambridge tenant Kevin Bradley, a member of the Eviction-Free Zone, a tenants right organization.

"Our reading of this bill is that if a tenant does not pay every cent the landlord claims is owed, then he won't get before a judge," said Annette Duke of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, arguing against the bill Monday.

"This bill removes the judges' ability to hear both sides," she said. "What they're doing with SB 541 is taking away the power to hear."

Bradley also says the bill puts the tenants at the mercy of the landlords.

"We will have to escrow not the contracted rent, but what the landlord wants," he says.

A Case in Point?