A prominent group representing small landlords has sued state officials for access to data on the state’s pandemic rental aid program it says could show discrimination against renters of color and their landlords.

MassLandlords filed the suit in Suffolk Superior Court last month, saying the Department of Housing and Community Development has denied its public records requests seeking the addresses associated with each rental aid application and the ultimate fate of those applications. The suit seeks

Because the state automatically closed renters’ applications if the original 13-page application was not completed in two weeks, the MassLandlords lawsuit claims, citing state statistics, a large share of all aid applications begun were never finished. The lawsuit says state officials reported 57 percent of applications had timed out as of late March 2021, 67 percent in May and 33 percent as of mid-September. Between state and federal funds, Massachusetts’ trio of rental relief programs were given over $800 million to spend helping renters pay back rent if they lost a job or saw their income cut due to the pandemic. Around $400 million remains unspent, state officials said in December.

“We know there are people out there who needed help and didn’t get that,” MassLandlords Executive Director Doug Quattrochi said in an interview.

After significant public outcry and administrative decisions by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the state revamped and shrank its rental aid application in October with the aim of making it easier for renters in distress to apply for aid.

The lawsuit says MassLandlords hopes to cross-reference the data showing applications’ fates with demographic data about the Census tracts the applications came from to estimate whether missteps by the Baker administration or the nonprofits state legislators tapped to administer the state rental aid program, like MetroHousing Boston or Springfield’s Wayfinders, ultimately discriminated against people of color.

“As many renters of color who didn’t get help there were landlords of color who didn’t get help,” Quattrochi said.“There’s this stereotype of large corporate owners, but the folks we’re fighting for are small landlords, our members.”

Quattrochi also wrote a column published in today’s issue of Banker & Tradesman outlining his organization’s reasoning.

DHCD told Banker & Tradesman in a statement that it was reviewing the lawsuit, but an opinion by state Supervisor of Public Records James Igoe, included as an exhibit in MassLandlords’ court filings, states that releasing rental aid applicants’ addresses would constitute an invasion of applicants’ privacy.