The Great Read Is There Such a Thing as a Humane Eviction? As a bulge of evictions looms, a Massachusetts sheriff is searching for ways to soften the blow. A sheriff places a notice to quit, the first stage in an eviction process, in the door of an apartment in Springfield, Mass.Credit...Bryan Anselm for The New York Times CHICOPEE, Mass. — The tenants in the third-floor apartment had 30 minutes to leave. Deputies from the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department — in black uniforms, with bulletproof vests and gold star badges — had climbed the back stairs with an eviction notice. The tenants — 22 and 23, in matching Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts and Crocs — were exhausted and dazed. They had stuffed some of their possessions into trash bags and suitcases, but much of what they owned would be left behind, in mounds on the floor.