EASTHAMPTON — Mona Shadi is facing eviction after being hit with a recent $300 monthly increase for the one-bedroom apartment she has rented in the city for the past two years. But she isn’t leaving without a fight.
Shadi said that when her landlord, Easthampton-based Pine Valley Realty, would not negotiate her rent, which rose from $900 to $1,200 a month, she took matters into her own hands. She began knocking on neighbors’ doors in at the 10-unit complex owned by Pine Valley, finding that many of them were also facing similar $300-$400 monthly rent increases.
After connecting with other renters in the city, dealing with large rent increases under different landlords, Shadi and her neighbors began gathering letters of support from the community.
Weeks of work brought her to Wednesday evening, when she alongside other renters, waltzed into Pine Valley’s office at the Union Street shopping plaza and delivered boxes full of roughly 600 letters of support as they attempt to arrange negotiations with the landlord.
“I have lived in rented housing since I was born,” Shadi said at a press conference before the letters were dropped off. “And I have never, in the decades of being a tenant, encountered this level of intransigence, callousness and outright refusal to communicate from a landlord as I have with Mr. Gawle.”
Shadi is referring to Pine Valley Owner Matthew Gawle, who was the target of Wednesday’s press conference organized by the Easthampton Tenants Union, a group of renters from different complexes in the city who have banded together over rental issues. Shadi claims that Gawle has dodged requests from tenants and local legislators to negotiate the recent rent hikes.
“Confronted with this reality and the very real fear for ourselves and our neighbors, we decided to go to our community and to ask that the people we share this wonderful city and Valley with would sign letters asking Mr. Gawle to negotiate a sustainable arrangement for everyone. And our neighbors did not disappoint,” she said.
Shadi said her neighbors have seen monthly $25 or $50 increases in the past, but this $300 increase took them by surprise. As a result, she and fellow tenant Roland Decaires continued paying their old rent amount. That’s when Gawle began the eviction process for them both.
Decaires did not attend the press conference, though a statement was read on his behalf:
“I am 79 years old. I have been living here for 16 years and I have never experienced such an unreasonable increase in rent. I am retired and live on Social Security. I also have medical problems like diabetes and I am on dialysis. It would be a financial hardship for me to have my rent raised by $375 a month.”
Now, Shadi is challenging the eviction in court.
Gawle was not in the Pine Valley office when the tenants dropped off the letters Wednesday afternoon, but squabbling burst out between the tenants and Pine Valley Manager Donna Gawle — Matthew’s wife.
In an interview with the Gazette, Donna Gawle said the rent increases are needed to keep up with the rising costs it takes to own and manage their housing. She said Pine Valley owns roughly 230 residential units in the city across 13 different complexes, along with several single-family homes. The complexes consist of one- or two-bedroom units.
She said since 2019, Pine Valley’s repair and maintenance costs have gone up 178%, property insurance costs have gone up 140%, mortgage interest has gone up 9% and real estate taxes have increased.
“We’re a local small business, we employ local people. We’re really trying to stay here,” she said.
She said rent increases vary for each unit depending on how well the building did that year. Sometimes Pine Valley has gone five years without raising rents for certain complexes.
“We value our tenants, we care for them and our community,” Donna Gawle said. “We’re really hoping that after this, we won’t have to raise rent in the future.”
Other properties
On the other side of the city, it’s a similar story for Kelley Hutchins, a tenant of a different Pine Valley complex who has lived in her current apartment for 15 years.
“This year, my rent was raised by 54%, a number no working person can absorb without sacrifice,” Hutchins said. “When I asked for a conversation, I was told there was no room for negotiation because of increased costs.”
Three groups of tenants have become outspoken after receiving rent hikes that date back to last winter — groups from 17 Adams St., Pleasant View Apartments and Pine Valley complexes. Tenants from all three attended Wednesday’s press conference.
Together, certain tenants helped canvass to collect the letters of support and have also formed the Easthampton Tenants Union, a group now meeting weekly at 5 p.m. on Thursdays at the city’s Municipal Building, aiming to support tenants and take action.
“This summer, our small but persistent tenants association successfully pushed back against Hurricane Properties, an out-of-state investment company that tried to increase our rents by 30% to 50%,” said Ilene Roizman, a 17 Adams St. tenant. “We are about to sign new leases with a more reasonable increase of 7.5%.”
For Roizman, though, the situation with Pine Valley is different. She said tenants of 17 Adams St. were able to negotiate with out-of-state landlords, but for Pine Valley being a local landlord, it is striking that they are not willing to negotiate.
She said local landlords should be more willing to negotiate and work with their tenants since they have more stake in their community.
“It’s not landlords versus tenants, it’s landlords and tenants versus corporate entities, because they are the ones that are ruining everything and making these local landlords feel like they have to keep up,” Roizman said in an interview with the Gazette.
Joel Feldman, an attorney for Springfield-based law firm Heisler, Feldman, & Ordorica, also spoke at the press conference. He said he hopes landlords start thinking about the morality behind high rent increases and eviction cases.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and the housing situation has never been worse in the Valley,” he said. “Mr. Gawle, you are now the poster child for why rent control has to be passed in Massachusetts. I hope you read these 600 letters and realize you can do better and you can be part of the solution, rather than being the problem.”
Rent control?
Efforts to implement rent control in Massachusetts have been ongoing. With multiple bills being prolonged on Beacon Hill, Massachusetts Homes for All this summer spearheaded efforts to get rent stabilization on the 2026 state election ballot.
According to State House News Service, Home for All Massachusetts reported that it has collected more than 124,000 raw signatures — well above the 74,574 certified signatures required to advance the proposal to the next stage.
This proposed law would limit the annual rent increase for residential units in the state to the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index for a 12-month period, or 5%, whichever is lower.
“The signatures have been collected. It’s not on the ballot yet,” Feldman said. “It (would be) on the ballot a year from now. It’s unclear whether it will get voted in.”
Some landlords and the association, Mass Landlords, have pushed back against the initiative.
A message sent from Mass Landlords to its subscribers on Tuesday reads, “This ballot initiative strips property owners of their rights. It’s unfair, poorly planned and won’t work — but if we don’t stand up now, it could be our reality soon. Thank you for helping us fight this dangerous policy.”
When Donna Gawle was asked if Pine Valley raised rents to get ahead of the potential ballot measure, she said “No.”
