Transparent advocacy for the rights of tenants
This post will show how we work with our legislative partners, there is nothing to hide and the more people understand the process, the stronger our movement as we demonstrate how we do democracy. Beacon Hill is often criticized for a lack of transparency. Legislators are seen as under the influence of powerful forces that are never seen in the light of day. We of the Stop Bullying Coalition do advocate on policies and legislation, and we do so out in the open, transparently. We are welcoming training, and learning from new leaders, so we have involved them in the process, and welcome new activists.
January 10, 2025 by email
Dear Senator Lovely, Representatives Sally Kerans,Tom Walsh, Manny Cruz and other legislative supporters of justice for tenants of public and subsidized housing,
On behalf of the Stop Bullying Coalition, I thank you for your continuing efforts to improve housing and to protect our rights.
I trust that you will file and support legislation in the current session to establish an office of the tenant advocate within the Office of the Attorney General.
Please continue to also file and support the complementary legislation to provide guidance, training, and resources to better enable housing providers to see to the well-being of tenants, as previously filed by Senator Lovely and Representative Honan.
I continue to observe situations in housing where everyone is under stress, fearful, angry and hurt. The problems of governance are huge, the problem is not just a new strategic document. Instead it is the need for a radical restructuring of the relations of the interest groups (public, tenants, staff, executive director, commissioners or landlord.) What is needed as a goal is a community of sharing and collaboration, and not the chaos of everyone playing a zero-sum game. Everyone needs to be loved and appreciated, and no one has those needs met. There are people of good will who strive to make progress, but the barriers they face are significant. Tenants who serve as commissioners are attacked rather than welcomed for their experience and insights.
The work we did in the Commission on Bullying is the basis for the two bills, and your continued efforts to advance these legislative remedies give us hope.
Of course each of you has demonstrated concern and understanding of the problems. I am conscious of the press of so many competing bills at this time of year, and that some of you may have new legislative aides, therefore I am submitting two documents (attached) to provide essential background and resources to assist in their work. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or concerns.
There are issues that I hope you can resolve:
- Should the legislation specify staffing under the AG’s office; staff, budget. Led by Assistant to the Attorney General, several attorneys, staff, resources. How to enforce rulings?
- Consider the creation of a separate board or commission with ability to enforce rulings; board, staff, budget. Like the Architectural Access Board or MCAD and with sufficient resources to act in a timely fashion
- Funding: a per-resident annual tax on all housing providers plus income from fines for noncompliance
Thank you for what you do,
All the best,
Jerry
Jerry Halberstadt
Protecting the Rights and Well-Being of Tenants
Establishing the Office of the Tenant Advocate: An Introduction to Assist the Legislative Process
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. —Petition to establish the tenant advocate
http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/tenant-advocate
The housing provider is responsible in custom, law, and contract to assure all tenants of “peaceful” or “quiet enjoyment” of their residency.
Bullying, mobbing, and hostile environment harassment deprive tenants of their peaceful enjoyment and their established rights. The targets of these aggressive actions may or not be targeted as members of a protected group, so any remedy must be universal.
In public and subsidized housing when bullying, mobbing, or hostile environment harassment targets tenants, everyone including the management, staff, and housing providers experience a disruption on normal, healthy community life. No person is immune from bullying, mobbing, or harassment—not the commissioner, not the executive director, not the staff person, and not the tenant. Therefore, any remedy must support, guide, enable, and hold accountable the housing provider with a goal of establishing a safe community for all.
In public housing, although there is a framework for oversight by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, it does not appear to be solving even cases of extreme disruption. Although the housing provider, the board of commissioners, is responsible for assuring the peaceful enjoyment and rights of tenants, there is no accountability. In subsidized housing, despite there being oversight functions, in practice there is no effective oversight.
Introduction to assist the legislative process
Scope of the problem
The statewide survey on bullying, mobbing, and harassment in housing covered 90,000 units in 1,400 developments for elderly and disabled. (617 respondents) found that hostile environment is widespread, and very few victims get effective help.
Jerry Halberstadt and Marvin So, Statewide Survey on Bullying of Tenants in Public and Subsidized Multifamily Housing: Report of the Committee for Research on Conditions and Prevalence of the Commission on Bullying, (Boston: Mass Commission on Bullying, 2017).
The following is a report on findings based on analysis of the raw survey data by Halberstadt. Survey & Qualitative Research 2017-2020
Almost half of the respondents experience bullying in the housing developments where they live or work. Respondents, 178/617 or 29%, living in communities that likely have mobbing—they reported being bullied and seeing others bullied. Slightly more than half of the respondents did not report experiencing bullying. About 30% of respondents live in bully-free communities— not only did they not report being bullied, but they did not report observing others who were bullied. The agents of the landlord—managers and staff—as well as residents perpetrated bullying. Managers and staff also reported being bullied.
A major source of the bullying had to do with governance of the community (80%). Bullying targeted people for their official role (29%) and in retaliation for making complaints against management or staff (29%) or tenants (22%). At the fall 2017 convention of the Mass Union of Public Housing Tenants, about 80 out of 100 tenant leaders reported they had been bullied or had witnessed bullying in their housing communities. Other perceived reasons for bullying were gender; disability; and race or ethnicity. Very few persons who had been bullied were successful in getting relief, ranging from 16% as reported by victims who sought help to 32% as reported by those who observed the process. Many did not even seek a remedy because they feared retaliation if they complained.
Where we find conditions comparable to mobbing, bullying is done by agents of the landlord and by tenants in similar numbers, 63% and 62%. The perceived causes of bullying targets were that agents of the landlord were targeted 21%, while 49% was directed at people out of prejudice and were likely civil rights violations.
Definitions
From the proposed bill to create the office of the tenant advocate.
“Bullying”, any mode of communication to hurt and demean the target or victim. It is aggression and an effort to control that is used to make the target or victim do, or not do, the bidding of the perpetrator. An individual or group can mobilize members of the community to use gossip, social pressures and isolation as part of a bullying effort. Bullying harms and controls the target or victim and takes away their rights, dignity, self-respect, health and well-being. Bullying takes away the right of peaceful enjoyment.
“Hostile environment harassment”, unwelcome conduct creating a situation that makes it difficult or impossible for victims to have the peaceful enjoyment of their residency. Hostile environment harassment exists when a person was subjected to unwelcome spoken, written or physical conduct and the conduct was sufficiently severe or pervasive as to interfere with or deprive the victim of their right to use and enjoy the housing. A determination of whether this standard has been met is to be based on the totality of the circumstances. Whether a hostile environment harassment violation has occurred is a fact-specific inquiry. Hostile environment harassment shall include, but not be limited to, bullying or mobbing. Hostile environment harassment can be written, verbal or other conduct and does not require physical contact. A single incident of harassment may constitute hostile environment harassment, where the incident is sufficiently severe to create a hostile environment.
(1) Factors to be considered to determine whether hostile environment harassment exists include but are not limited to, the nature of the conduct, the context in which the incident occurred, the severity, scope, frequency, duration and location of the conduct and the relationships of the persons involved.
(2) Neither psychological nor physical harm must be demonstrated to prove that a hostile environment exists. Evidence of psychological or physical harm may, however, be relevant in determining whether a hostile environment existed and, if so, the amount of damages to which an aggrieved person may be entitled.
(3) Whether unwelcome conduct is sufficiently severe or pervasive as to create a hostile environment is evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable person in the aggrieved person's position.
“Mobbing”, consists of a group or community harassing and bullying a victim through cooperative or aggressive behavior, including in order to get them to leave their residence. In housing, mobbing can be initiated, condoned or supported by a landlord or housing authority.
“Peaceful 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.
Mobbing
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. "It 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; a statement presented to the Massachusetts Commission on Bullying, 7 August 2017. http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/harper-mobbing
Hostile environment harassment
The definition of hostile environment harassment in the proposal for creating the office of the tenant advocate is based on the final rule on hostile environment harassment under the Fair Housing Act extended to protect tenants of public and subsidized housing without regard to protected characteristics. When hostile environment harassment pervades a housing development, tenants lose their rights, live in fear, and the community is unable to come together for positive outcomes.
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
Legal obligations of housing providers
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. Office of the Attorney General Advisory: All Tenants Have a Right to Be Free from Harassment and Intimidation, April 11, 2018.
Oversight is lacking or ineffective
Public housing
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
Such actions seem to be rare and an official of the Office of the AG said that they do not receive reports of the problem. Tenants who have sought help from the AG say they got no support.
Section 11H. (a)(1) Whenever any person or persons, whether or not acting under color of law, interfere by threats, intimidation or coercion, or attempt to interfere by threats, intimidation or coercion, with the exercise or enjoyment by any other person or persons of rights secured by the constitution or laws of the United States, or of rights secured by the constitution or laws of the commonwealth, the attorney general may bring a civil action for injunctive or other appropriate equitable relief in order to protect the peaceable exercise or enjoyment of the right or rights secured. Said civil action shall be brought in the name of the commonwealth and shall be instituted either in the superior court for the county in which the conduct complained of occurred or in the superior court for the county in which the person whose conduct complained of resides or has his principal place of business. MGL c.12 Section c. 12, §§ 11H
Project-Based Section 8 housing
“In Project-Based Section 8 housing, one of the main structural breakdowns affecting the everyday lives of tenants is the lack of a functioning accountability and oversight system for the private property managers who carry out the housing program.”—Molly Rockett
Molly Rockett, Private Property Managers, Unchecked: The Failures of Federal Compliance Oversight in Project-Based Section 8 Housing, 134 Harv. L. Rev. F. 286 March 2021 https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-134/private-property-managers-un…
Proposed legislation
http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/tenant-advocate
Reports and examples
Halberstadt, Jerry, Sticks, Stones, Gossip & Governance Part 1 of 2
Halberstadt, Jerry, Sticks, Stones, Gossip & Governance Part 2 of 2
Halberstadt, Jerry, Bullying & Democracy At Apple Village
Halberstadt, Jerry, Community Norms and Governance of Housing, 2020
Halberstadt, Jerry, Community Support for Respect, Comments prepared for delivery at the November 14, 2024 gathering of the Anti-Hate, Anti-Bias Task Force of Middlesex DA Marian T. Ryan
Reports of personal experiences
Hostile environment harassment in an apartment complex and in public housing: reports by Doreen Wade, President of Salem United, Inc., Pamela Goodwin, and about “Margaret,” as well as observations by legislators. See “Tenants report on hostile environment harassment”
Report on the retaliation against Pamela Goodwin: http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/open-letter-retaliation
Pamela Goodwin on choosing to be homeless: http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/no-evictions
Homeless because of mobbing:
“Phoebe” http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/phoebe
Hearings before the Joint Committee on Housing from 2014 to 2021 provide extensive testimony with detailed evidence of the need for a solution such as the Tenant Advocate.
http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/201904testimony
http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/S709-TESTIMONY
http://stopbullyingcoalition.org/testimony-ombuds