In some housing authorities, the governance system is in turmoil. How can we remedy the breakdown in trust that affects everyone: tenants, the board, the executive director, the staff, and even the public? Can we find a way to create a more collaborative, transparent community and to value constructive input from everyone?

Negro Election Day was hot and sunny.

To the Honorable Chairs and Members of the Joint Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures, and State Assets.

Greetings:

H4138 The Affordable Homes Act promises many benefits in housing. However, it fails to deal with the essential rights of tenants, suitable housing for all the homeless, and support for people who depend on personal care attendants. This is an appeal for the missing bills and on behalf of the invisible people.

Draft prepared for presentation to the ILC Housing Working Group 02/27; ILC Housing Projects , A project of the MA Association of Independent Living Centers and The MA Statewide Independent Living Council. 

It is bitterly cold now as the nomads, women in their 70s and 80s, gather in their vans and cars in the department store parking lot on a bitterly cold night. The common thread in their stories is how they were forced out of their homes because their bodies could not tolerate smoking or other triggers of their asthma or multiple chemical sensitivity. Multiple chemical sensitivity is a condition in which the body’s immune and neurological systems cause symptoms similar to allergies, symptoms that can be disabling.

As leaders of the Stop Bullying Coalition advocating for the rights of tenants living in public and subsidized housing we have the honor of meeting and collaborating on policy with our legislators and high state officials in the Office of the Attorney General and with the new Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC).

Politics is the art of the possible. Advocacy is the art of changing the possible.

After a decade of advocacy for the right of tenants to be free of bullying and harassment, we ask: Why has it taken so long? When will we get relief? Is it worth continuing our efforts?

It’s taken so long because the task is so challenging. We will get relief if all of us continue showing up and keep telling Beacon Hill our demand: We want our rights! When do we want them? Now!

It’s now up to every one of us to tell Beacon Hill, We want our rights now!

Testimony of Jerry Halberstadt and others in favor of H3868, “An Act to create the office of the tenant advocate in the Office of the Attorney General,” prepared for the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, December 5, 2023 

To the Honorable Chairs James B. Eldridge and Michael S. Day, Vice Chairs Lydia Edwards and Christine P. Barber and members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.

Greetings: