Nowhere to go: Family searches for new home after mid-pandemic eviction
Melissa French and her family were evicted from their Peterborough home so their landlord could renovate. Staff photo by Abbe Hamilton
Melissa French and her family found a new home about a month after being evicted. Staff photo by Abbe Hamilton
Melissa French, of Peterborough. Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021 Staff photo by Abbe Hamilton—
Melissa French’s family never quite bounced back from the 2008 housing crisis.
They spent the past decade in tenuous housing situations before finding an affordable place to live in Peterborough in 2015. The stability allowed French to put down roots for the first time in years, even joining the Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter (MATS) board in 2018, but she was forced to face the region’s grim rental market once again this year when she received an eviction notice from their landlord, who wanted the house empty by April so he could renovate and sell.