Introducing Ourselves to Dignity Alliance
Paul Lanzikos, thank you for this opportunity, and thank you and your team for your years of dedication and leadership—what a proud example!
I thank Dick Moore for a strong letter of testimony, and the Dignity Alliance cosigners of testimony in support of our advocacy for H1814, to establish the office of the tenant advocate in the Office of the Attorney General.
In just a few years Dignity Alliance has become a strong and respected force for justice and “...the dignity of older adults, people with disabilities, and their caregivers.” You are organized, collaborative, and persistent.
When we grow up, we want to be like you.
Our shared challenges and goals
The Stop Bullying Coalition supports your vital work as we seek to protect the rights of tenants in public and subsidized housing. Like you, we seek better accountability so that our safety and rights are protected.
Mission of the Stop Bullying Coalition
Transforming housing into safe, peaceful, and joyful community.
The Stop Bullying Coalition
The Stop Bullying Coalition is a peer driven grassroots coalition of tenants, citizens, and organizations in Massachusetts. We advocate for the rights of all tenants in public and subsidized housing, especially the poor, the elderly, and the disabled and for the universal right to shelter.
Since no one is coming to help us, we help ourselves.
Advocacy is the art of creating possibility.
We do advocacy, research, and education to empower tenants. We seek to understand the social factors that enable or inhibit bullying, to discover ways to build healthy community life, and to overcome the cultural and social issues leading to conflict among tenants of public/subsidized housing. We publish a newsletter and a website with extensive resources.
We fight for our rights by actively engaging in advocacy for legislative and policy remedies; exposing injustices and sharing our success by telling our stories; partnering with coalitions and agencies based on shared interests; empowering individuals to lead in all aspects of our work including education and training opportunities; and offering support and belonging for those we serve and represent.
The challenges: bullying, mobbing, harassment
We began by seeking support for living with bullying, and then, step by step, have sought to understand its roots and how to prevent it.
Definitions
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Bullying—any mode of communication to hurt and demean the target or victim. It is aggression and an effort to control the other. Our society is full of bullying, we swim in it, however in housing, bullying is a symptom of bad management.
- Mobbing—consists of a group or community harassing and bullying a victim through cooperative aggressive behavior, including shunning; for any reason or no reason; in order to get them to leave their residence. “They don’t belong here.” Mobbing creates “loneliness, anxiety, depression, and damaging self-worth by making them feel rejected, powerless, and disconnected.” Often mobbing is in support of a group of perpetrators and their leader. Mobbing can be initiated, condoned, or supported by a landlord or housing authority. "[Mobbing] affects our sense of belonging, our self-esteem or sense of self worth, our sense of control over our lives, and our sense of having a meaningful existence."—Janice Harper, PhD, Bullying and Mobbing in Group Settings, statement presented to the Massachusetts Commission on Bullying, 7 August 2017. Other experts on mobbing say that “Mobbing is a much more sophisticated way of doing someone in than murder....”—Maureen Duffy and Len Sperry
- Peaceful or Quiet Enjoyment—the right to enjoy the use of a resident’s home and common spaces without interference. The landlord or the housing authority is legally responsible for assuring the peaceful enjoyment of all tenants.
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Hostile environment harassment—unwelcome conduct creating a situation that makes it difficult or impossible for victims to have the peaceful enjoyment of their residency. It is dangerous for tenants to confront mobbing and hostile environment harassment, the retaliation can be brutal. Today, there is rarely any oversight.
Legislative advocacy
Together with Senator Joan Lovely and other legislators, and a broad coalition, our efforts led to the creation of the 2017 Commission on Bullying, and I served as the sole tenant commissioner, representing the Stop Bullying Coalition. I led the research effort including a statewide survey that found almost half of tenants experience bullying and that very few get relief.
I was prevented by the Chair of the Commission from filing a minority report because I was told, “We don’t want you to advocate for tenants.”
I found that the systemic source of the bullying, mobbing, and hostile environment harassment is the failure of the landlord to protect the peaceful enjoyment of all tenants, as required by state and federal law.
Oversight and intervention by a legitimate authority can have a positive impact, as we see today in the Northampton Housing Authority.
In collaboration with Senator Lovely and Representative Sally Kerans, we advocate for legislation to establish an office of the tenant advocate H1814 for oversight and accountability over housing providers, and thus to help eliminate hostile environment harassment and thereby to stop bullying and mobbing.
We have been frustrated in getting our bill passed into law. When asked why, the easy explanation is that we are poor.
There is a long history of how society copes with us, as documented by Lawrence J. Vale; he reports on the
“...nature and extent of public obligation to socially and economically marginal people in America, as expressed through more than 350 years of culturally produced decisions about how and where such people should live.”
Constituents
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Our goal has been to help tenants in public/subsidized housing, elderly & disabled; n=~94,000; we currently reach a few hundred through our newsletter and blog. Going forward, we will reach out to all housing tenants, including holders of vouchers; n=343,000; 4.9% of state population; 3.6 X
Building
We are in the process of creating a leadership council of tenants and exploring a broader range of tactics and strategies to create safe housing.
We are also recruiting advisors, people with skills and experience that can help guide us.
We will continue supporting the efforts of Dignity Alliance and seek your continued interest and support as coalition partners and as advisors.
No One Is Safe Until Everyone Is.
Resources
About the Stop Bullying Coalition http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/index.php/about
Office of the Tenant Advocate http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/tenant-advocate
Janice Harper, PhD, statement presented to the Massachusetts Commission on Bullying, 7 August 2017. Bullying and Mobbing in Group Settings http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/index.php/harper-mobbing
Free newsletter signup: http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/subscribe Most newsletters, and many articles and resources are published at http://StopBullyingCoalition.org
Lawrence J. Vale, From the Puritans to the Projects, Harvard University Press
FR–5248–F–02 Quid Pro Quo and Hostile Environment Harassment and Liability for Discriminatory Housing Practices Under the Fair Housing Act, Final Rule published in the Federal Register on September 14,2016, CFR Citation: 24 CFR 100, p. 63075
The Attorney General is empowered to act to protect the rights of a victim of bullying and mobbing, including under the authority of MGL c.12 Section c. 12, §§ 11H-J and M.G.L. c. 151B, § 4(4A).2
“Office of the Attorney General Advisory: The failure of management and the landlord to assure peaceful enjoyment for all tenants is unlawful, according to the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts”
M.G.L. c. 186, § 14 , "...any lessor or landlord who directly or indirectly interferes with the quiet enjoyment of any residential premises by the occupant, or who attempts to regain possession of such premises by force without benefit of judicial process, shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than three hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than six months."
