Our Plan of Action

Advocacy is the art of creating new possibility

 

Transforming housing into safe, peaceful, respectful, supportive, healthy, and joyful communities for the poor, the elderly, and the disabled.—About 

 

We are every tenant in public and subsidized housing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, about 211,000 strong. We began as two people, and then became 90,000 tenants in elderly and subsidized housing for elderly and disabled. We fought for policy remedies, created legislative petitions, and established the Commission on Bullying in 2016 (that met in 2017) with extensive support from legislators, tenants, and coalition partners. We now expand our scope to include all tenants in public and subsidized housing because the problems we face are similar and because together, we are stronger.

We may be poor but we are nevertheless deserving of respect and must have our rights.

When any person or group is denied their rights, then no one is safe.

• We fight for our rights by advocating for legislative and policy remedies.

• We fight for our rights by telling our stories to educate and engage the public.

• We fight for our rights by joining in partnerships and coalitions with other groups based on shared interests.

• We create networks of individuals and groups based on locality and shared interests.

• We create joy and belonging for each other in our residential settings even as we struggle for our rights.

• We empower individuals to lead in all aspects of our work.

• We welcome individuals to share in the overall leadership and maintenance of the network as members of the Advisory Council of the Stop Bullying Coalition.

• We deserve to be treated fairly and so do the disabled, the immigrants, the homeless, and people of every ethnic, cultural, or racial origin, or sexual identity. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

• No one is safe until we are all safe.

• Only when we are all safe can we be free from fear and create community to enjoy social and emotional health.

Every tenant has a right to peaceful enjoyment

Bullying, mobbing, and hostile environment harassment are disruptive of community life and governance and cause great pain and harm to the targets of these forms of aggression, depriving them of their peaceful enjoyment. Peaceful enjoyment or quiet enjoyment is a legal concept that ensures tenants can live in and use their rented premises without interference. Federal and state law, regulations, and the lease all point to the responsibility of the housing provider to prevent harassment that impacts the peaceful enjoyment of the tenant. (See the definitions of bullying, mobbing, and hostile environment harassment in HD1704)

“Hostile environment harassment” is unwelcome conduct creating a situation that makes it difficult or impossible for victims to have the peaceful enjoyment of their residency.”

Ideally, the governance of public housing would encourage a safe, peaceful, and collaborative society that would prevent bullying. There needs to be an agreed polity—rules for behavior in the public sphere of community life. When there is no such consensus that is enforced, bullying and mobbing emerge.

At present, all housing providers, including private landlords of subsidized housing as well as public housing authorities, are legally obliged to deal with bullying, mobbing, harassment, and malfeasance. There is need for a fair, impartial, and comprehensive investigation regarding the existence of factors that enable and/or encourage bullying, mobbing, and hostile environment harassment at those residential settings. On the basis of the findings of such an investigation, recommendations should be developed for the landlord or board of commissioners to resolve the problems and to develop a safe, professional, productive, and collaborative environment.

Any effort to provide training and resources to promote learning about respect for others and options for resolving differences, and a corresponding shift in cultural norms, must be initiated and supported by the landlord or board of commissioners, all employees including the executive director and staff, LTOs, and all tenants. And each of these stakeholders must be prepared to learn and adapt their own behavior for the common good.

Mobbing has been shown by Janice Harper and by the research and reports of the Commission on Bullying to harm not only the targets but also to infect the whole community. Janice Harper’s analysis is foundational to understanding the problem. Harper argues that the victim of mobbing can never win and that efforts to apply legal remedies must avoid the trap of blaming the victim. Janice Harper learned through bitter personal experience that being shunned and ostracized by mobbing is destructive. 

Today, we have no protection

When there are problems of governance at a housing authority, complaints of malfeasance by staff may lead to an investigation, but complaints by tenants, not so much.

When the basic rights of tenants are denied through bullying, mobbing, and hostile environment harassment, there is no accessible and effective protection for the aggrieved tenant, despite the rule on hostile environment harassment in the Fair Housing law, and despite the opinion of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office that harassment is unlawful.

The Attorney General of the Commonwealth has the legal authority to intervene to protect a person whose rights are denied, but rarely does so. The aggrieved tenant has the right to bring a civil suit but cannot afford to do so. MGL c.12 Section c. 12, §§ 11H-J and M.G.L. c. 151B, § 4(4A).2 

Why is no one coming to help us?

The administrative reason that tenants don’t have their rights is that there is no oversight or accountability for housing providers, especially where the rights of tenants are at stake. The reasons for that failure of governance include the wealth and power difference between landlord and tenant; and the cultural and political bias that honors financial success, property rights, and that is prejudiced against the poor, the newcomer, and the person who is different in any way.

Protecting our rights

If no one is coming to help us—not the legislature and not the attorney general—how can we help ourselves?

Given our current social, cultural, and political environment, we will need to be creative and persistent, and use every possible tool, from letters to the editor, to our print and online publications, and public testimony as well as the arsenal of protest tools including demonstrations. We will overcome our differences, find common ground, organize, advocate, and persist.

What if we organized as a non-profit and raised enough money to hire staff and an attorney and the funding to take a few of the most egregious housing providers to court? Yes, the Attorney General and the Commonwealth should be doing this but they haven’t come to help us yet.

Legislative & Policy Advocacy

We fought for policy remedies and got the Commission on Bullying in 2017 with extensive support by legislators. Jerry Halberstadt , as Coordinator of the Stop Bullying Coalition, was appointed by Governor Baker to serve as the sole commissioner representing tenants, and when he tried to file a minority report to include the results of his research that tenants had helped to develop, he was told, “We won’t let you advocate for tenants.”

Now, legislation (HD3720 / SD1572, to prevent and respond to bullying of elderly and disabled residents) based on the work of the Commission on Bullying that will support the work of housing providers and managers may be heading for success on Beacon Hill,.

Our legislation, HD1704 to create the office of the tenant advocate in the Office of the Attorney General to protect the rights of tenants has a chance only if we demonstrate sufficient support to assure passage.

HD1704 to create the office of the tenant advocate in the Office of the Attorney General. HD1704 will protect the right of peaceful enjoyment for all tenants of public and subsidized housing.

Representative Sally Kerans has filed our bill in the house with Senator Joan B. Lovely as a joint presenter: HD.1704 An Act to create the office of the tenant advocate in the Office of the Attorney General.

“There shall be within the office of the attorney general, an office of the tenant advocate. The attorney general, through the office of the tenant advocate, may intervene, appear and participate in administrative, regulatory, or judicial proceedings on behalf of all tenants living in public or subsidized housing to protect the tenants’ rights as tenants to the peaceful enjoyment of their residence and investigate, correct and hold landlords or housing authorities accountable for hostile environment harassment.”

We will make every effort to push for adoption and passage of the bill. It is an uphill struggle that requires everyone to actively advocate.

Every tenant who cares about their rights must reach out to their state senator and representative to demand their support for passage of these bills.

Please contact your state senator and representative today and urge them to cosponsor and support both these bills.

The influence of landlords as lobbyists and as significant donors will continue to make passage of legislation to protect the rights of tenants a challenge. To overcome, we need to create a lot of public pressure and to broaden the advocacy base. We need you to act.

Peaceful enjoyment or quiet enjoyment is a legal concept that ensures tenants can live in and use their rented premises without interference. The Office of the Attorney General states all tenants have a right to be free from harassment and intimidation, but seems to primarily address cases of harassment based on discrimination. Our experience as tenants is that victims are targeted for any reason or no reason, and the “reasons” may not match with the legally protected categories of discrimination. The tenant advocate will protect against hostile environment harassment, regardless of the motivation of the aggressor or the identity of the target.

HD3720 / SD1572, to prevent and respond to bullying of elderly and disabled residents. The bill will create programs of education and training, guidance including establishing best practices, and support the efforts of housing providers to provide a safe environment in public and subsidized housing for elderly and disabled persons.

HD1704 will complement HD3720/SD1572 by providing oversight, investigation, and direct engagement in governance and oversight procedures to help protect the rights of all tenants to peaceful enjoyment.

Stop Bullying Coalition is the third network

We will expand the reach of the Stop Bullying Coalition by creating a third network of tenant advocates in parallel and in collaboration, not in competition with the existing networks of public housing tenant groups, Mass Union of Public Housing Tenants; and subsidized housing tenant groups, Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants.

We will work with our existing networks to connect with tenants in every housing setting.

We will encourage and support newsletters and other publications by tenants to complement the existing Newsletter of the Stop Bullying Coalition.

We will create focus groups by region and by interest or role.

Examples:

• Western Mass, Greater Boston, North Shore, etc.

• tenant commissioners support and advocacy group

• creating a warm, welcoming social setting: support, hospitality, events, mutual aid

We will use zoom/virtual meetings to build these connections across distance as well as local gatherings.

Networking with Partner Organizations

We share interests with many advocacy organizations, and we will continue to help each other and we will reach out to additional groups.

You ask, "What can I do?" Join and participate in any of the groups listed below. They are all doing good work. Listen to what they say and do, and see if our interests coincide. Help us to connect with them so we can help each other.

This is a list of examples, not a list of current partners and includes groups that we have partnered with or that we now seek to partner with.

• Citizens’ Housing And Planning Association (CHAPA)

"Creating alliances that drive change."

• Dignity Alliance Massachusetts "Respect, Self-Determination, Choices"

"Dignity Alliance Massachusetts is dedicated to transformative change to ensure the dignity of older adults, people with disabilities, and their caregivers.  We are committed to advancing new ways of providing long-term services, support, living options, and care, while respecting choice and self-determination.  Through education, legislation, regulatory reform, and legal strategies, this mission will become reality throughout the Commonwealth."

Mass Union of Public Housing Tenants (MUPHT)

"Founded by public housing residents in 1967 and incorporated in 1971, the Massachusetts Union of Public Housing Tenants is the first statewide public housing tenants’ organization in the nation. Born from a sense of frustration, and hopelessness, fed by a need for justice, basic human rights and decent living conditions, the Union now grows in the knowledge that information perseverance and community strength can create a decent future, pride in one’s community and the understanding that individuals united together for a just cause can affect and change any situation."

• Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants (MAHT)

"Founded in 1983 as the nation’s first and most accomplished area wide HUD tenant coalition, MAHT is the only resident-run, membership coalition providing organizing and technical assistance to HUD and MassHousing tenants in Eastern and Central Massachusetts."

• Disability Policy Consortium (DPC)

"DPC is Massachusetts' leading disability rights organization. We've won major victories for our community in redefining the role of government as it affects the lives of people with disabilities through grassroots advocacy, community-based participatory research, and policy analysis and development."

• Mass Senior Action Council (MSAC)

"Massachusetts Senior Action Council (MSAC) is a statewide, grassroots, senior-led organization that empowers its members to use their own voices to address key public policy and community issues that affect their health and well-being."

• Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO)

"The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), founded in 1998, is a broad-based organization that works for the public good by coalescing, training, and organizing people across religious, racial, ethnic, class, and neighborhood lines. Membership consists of 60 dues-paying members in Greater Boston representing more than 107,000 individuals. GBIO organizes people and institutions at neighborhood, city, and state levels."

• Massachusetts Human Rights Coalition (MAHRC)

"The Massachusetts Human Rights Coalition (MAHRC) is an organization of municipal and local agencies responsible for promoting human and civil rights and harmonious relationships among diverse groups at a local level. We provide leadership in the areas of human rights and intergroup relationships.  We accomplish this by promoting networking initiatives, developing educational strategies and model programs, and serving as a resource for new and existing human rights and relations commissions."

• Salem United, Inc.  Doreen Wade, President. Salem United organizes the annual Negro Election Day event at the Salem Willows Park.

• Local civic and volunteer organizations, such as the Northampton Neighborhood Association; the Northampton Housing Partnership; the Salem League of Women Voters.