When the Westfield Police Department posted on Facebook on Dec. 22, the backlash was swift.
“Is this rage bait?” one commenter asked. “This would be laughable if it also wasn’t so dystopian,” another person said.
The post in question was a digital flyer for an upcoming “landlord meeting” that Westfield police are hosting. But the uproar was as much about the language the department used as it was about the idea of the meeting itself. Against a snowy, winter-wonderland backdrop, the promotion promised landlords and property managers “knowledge that will only help you increase your profit and keep problem tenants away.”
That language drew scrutiny from tenants-rights advocates, who questioned whether Westfield police would hold a similar meeting for tenants facing painful rent hikes or unscrupulous landlords. Among Westfield tenants who raised an eyebrow at the idea of a police-landlord meeting was Katie Talbot, who is also the organizing director at the grassroots anti-eviction group Springfield No One Leaves. She described the sentiments shared in the police department’s flyer as “gross.”
“Police departments shouldn’t have anything to do with landlords increasing profits or weeding out ‘bad tenants,’” Talbot said. “That has nothing to do with community safety.”
As it turns out, the Westfield Police Department has been holding meetings for landlords, on and off, for around two decades.
That’s according to Capt. Steve Dickinson, the Westfield officer who first started the landlord program. In a phone interview with The Shoestring, Dickinson explained that he is in charge of community policing in Westfield, which includes working with store owners, landlords, and other “third parties” to “address their own issues.”
Often, Dickinson said, landlords come to the police department’s meetings when they’re “at their wits’ end” with tenants not paying their rent or causing damage to their properties. At the meetings, he said guest speakers — everyone from housing court judges and attorneys to city officials — teach landlords skills like “how to properly vet tenants.”
“And once they get tenants, how to collect rent, how to sign leases,” Dickinson explained. “What’s legal, what’s not legal, in Massachusetts, how to evict.”
Dickinson said that the department’s offer to help landlords profit doesn’t mean “exploiting tenants” but instead helping landlords find “good tenants” who pay their bills and don’t cause trouble.
Dickinson’s overall view of renters, however, is that they are more likely to commit crimes and are less “invested” in the place they live. He said he’s passionate about the landlord meetings because “most of the crimes that occur in any city or town are not committed by the homeowners — homeowners who are invested in the community.”
“Most of the crimes that occur, most of the police calls that occur, are rental properties,” he said. “The reason for that is that they’re transient.”
For that reason, Dickinson said educating landlords about how to screen potential tenants results in “better clientele coming into our city.” And that, he said, has helped reduce crime. In particular, he singled out those who have been to court for nonpayment of rent, people with low credit scores, an unstable employment history, or bad references from previous landlords.
“Those are the people you want to stay away from,” he said.
Several Westfield tenants expressed strong opposition to those sentiments.
Lyla Bronner is one of them. A renter for the last six years in Westfield, she said she initially had a great landlord who was quick to fix things. But he eventually sold the building to new owners, who she said pushed her out when they tried to raise the rent by $300. In her new apartment, which is smaller and not much cheaper, she said she now has mold problems that her landlord hasn’t properly addressed.
As a renter, Bronner said she feels like she doesn’t have many rights. So it’s concerning, she said, that the city’s police are holding a meeting for landlords but not people like her.
“Quite frankly, I think it’s disgusting. I don’t see how a department that’s supposed to protect and serve the community can build this pipeline of information that goes solely to landlords,” she said. She’s also concerned about the connection between those two groups. “It scares me to know the information that the cops have access to and what they could then divulge to landlords.”
Talbot pushed back strongly against Dickinson’s claim that renters are less invested in the community they live in.
“The reason tenants are often transient and can’t put roots down in a community, even though they want to, is because landlords are able to increase rents 50%, 75%, 100%,” she said. And those soaring rents often push people out of their homes, she said.
Talbot also said she would like to see the research behind Dickinson’s claim that renters cause more crime, which she said feels “classist and probably racist too.” And she said it’s disturbing to weed out renters based on their past involvement with the legal system.
“Housing is a human right, regardless of someone’s background,” she said. “People deserve safe, affordable, and dignified housing.”
Bronner agreed that even if somebody has a criminal background, that doesn’t mean they’re bad people or should be denied housing.
“We all have pasts, we all have things we’re not proud of, and just because someone might have caused trouble in maybe the most vulnerable moment of their life, that doesn’t mean they’re going to cause trouble for the rest of their lives and cause trouble for their landlord,” she said. “It’s an asinine way of thinking.”
Bronner said she wishes there were more community outreach to tenants, who are facing significant challenges in western Massachusetts with rising rents and inflation.
“It’s scary times right now and I only see it getting worse,” she said. “We need to band together to stop this madness.”
In July 2025, the UMass Donahue Institute released a report that found a continuing housing crisis in Massachusetts, where “families and individuals across the region are struggling to make rent or find affordable homeownership opportunities.”
“This leaves vulnerable populations experiencing housing instability and at risk of homelessness,” the report’s authors wrote. “Furthermore, racial inequity persists across the region as Black and Hispanic households are more likely to be cost-burdened and less likely to be homeowners than their white counterparts.”
Talbot said that Springfield No One Leaves is fully supportive of landlords learning their rights and legal responsibilities, but said that there are plenty of agencies that do that work. That’s not something a police department should be doing, she said.
Westfield police will be holding the landlord’s meeting on Jan. 13 at 5:45 p.m. Dickinson said that while the department normally holds them at Shaker Farms Country Club, this upcoming meeting will be at Shortstop Bar & Grill.
“We focus on landlords, but obviously that meeting is open to anybody who wants to come,” he said. “Certainly tenants could show up if they have issues.”
Dusty Christensen is The Shoestring's investigations editor. Based in western Massachusetts, his award-winning investigative reporting has appeared in newspapers and on radio stations across the region. He has reported for outlets including The Nation magazine, NPR, Haaretz, New England Public Media, The Boston Globe, The Appeal, In These Times, and PBS. He teaches journalism to future muckrakers at both the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Smith College. Send story tips to: dchristensen@theshoestring.org.
