The East Boston Spatial Justice Lab announces a new phase of work
The Neighborhood Eviction Defense (NED)planning grant.
A new community-led planning initiative to address housing instability in East Boston, launching with support from the Mellon Foundation.
Overview
The East Boston Spatial Justice Lab (EBSJL), a project of NuLawLab at Northeastern University School of Law, is launching a new planning grant initiative to develop the Neighborhood Eviction Defense (NED) Training Program.
This initiative will design a strategy to equip residents, neighborhood organizers, and community partners with culturally grounded tools to prevent eviction and respond to housing instability.
NED advances a model in which communities are not just recipients of legal services, but active participants in shaping how legal knowledge is understood, shared, and mobilized.
The Challenge
Boston’s housing crisis continues to intensify, driven by rising rents, limited affordable housing, and increasing eviction filings. Many renters are cost-burdened, and low-income and immigrant communities face disproportionate risk of displacement and homelessness.
At the same time, legal services remain limited in scale and are often disconnected from the cultural and social realities of the communities they aim to serve.
The Approach
The Neighborhood Eviction Defense Training Program planning grant will explore a different approach to legal empowerment.
Rather than centering access to professional legal services alone, this project expands who can engage with the law by supporting community members, organizers, and mutual aid networks as key actors in the local justice ecosystem.
During this planning phase, the team will develop a framework that includes:
community-based eviction defense training
co-designed, culturally relevant curriculum
support for neighborhood housing organizers
strengthened mutual aid and local legal support networks
participatory evaluation models that measure both housing outcomes and community wellbeing
This work integrates legal education, arts and cultural organizing, popular education methods, and participatory design and research.
Collaboration
The project is led by a transdisciplinary team of neighborhood organizers, researchers, legal advocates, and cultural practitioners.
EBSJL is working in collaboration with StarLuna Consulting, a Boston-based firm focused on anti-racism, environmental justice, and community-centered policy and planning.
A Shift in Legal Infrastructure
“This initiative reflects a broader shift in how we think about legal systems—not as services delivered to communities, but as infrastructures that can be co-created with them.”
— Dan Jackson, Executive Director, NuLawLab
“This work is about moving beyond access to legal services toward building community capacity and agency.”
— Jules Rochielle Sievert, Creative Director, NuLawLab
Why This Matters
People facing eviction often turn first to trusted community networks rather than formal legal institutions. This project builds on that reality by strengthening those networks and expanding their capacity to engage with legal processes.
It advances a model where legal knowledge is shared collectively, advocacy is community-driven, and support systems are embedded within neighborhoods.
About EBSJL
The East Boston Spatial Justice Lab brings together community members, researchers, and practitioners to address housing instability, displacement, and spatial inequality through participatory research and design
Learn More
Press inquiries: da.jackson@northeastern.edu
Website: www.nulawlab.org
