Mona Shadi, a tenant with Pine Valley Realty, drops off letters at Pine Valley Realty from the community supporting her and other tenants struggling with rising rents as part of a Easthampton Tenant Union press conference Wednesday afternoon. CAROL LOLLIS / Staff Photo
Easthampton tenants confront landlord over steep rent hikes
Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette | by Sam Ferland | December 11, 2025
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.
