HFF Legislative Priority 9: A Bill of Rights for People Experiencing Homelessness

Bill H.264/S.142 is formally called “An Act providing a bill of rights for people experiencing homelessness.” In short, it recognizes various fundamental rights that people experiencing homelessness should always have. A bill of rights for people experiencing homelessness is not a new piece of legislation in the country.

In fact, some states already have a homeless bill of rights, including Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Illinois. The nation still has a long way to go in passing and implementing a bill of rights for every state’s homeless population. By passing this bill, Massachusetts will be taking the next step forward in protecting the rights of all of its people. 

What are these rights exactly? In the states that have passed a homeless bill of rights, and in this proposed bill, the following rights are recognized: the right to move freely in public spaces, the right to confidentiality of records, the right to privacy of property, and the right to register to vote and to vote. Legislators and organizations working to pass this bill believe that these are fundamental human rights that are not currently protected in the homeless population. 

What will this bill change? 

• It will amend public spaces laws, recognizing the rights of people experiencing homelessness to rest, eat, pray, and be in public spaces 
• It will amend voting laws to affirm the right to vote and register to vote without a permanent address 
• It will amend anti-discrimination laws to include housing status 

This Bill would also repeal old sections of Massachusetts General Laws that use harmful terminology such as “tramps”, “vagrants”, and “vagabonds.” These terms have been used since before the foundation of this country and have been used as derogatory terms for people experiencing homelessness for centuries. First used to describe people who were homeless, unemployed, and/or participating in an unlicensed trade, they have come to be used instead to imply criminal activity and laziness. These detrimental terms clearly have no place in 21^st century legislation. 

Bill H.264/S.142 was presented by State Senator Rebecca L. Rausch and was referred to Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities. These legislative changes will affirm the equal rights of all persons experiencing homelessness. It is a critical step in combatting the inequalities faced by low-income people and in fighting for racial equity in housing and shelter. 

How to get involved: 

• USE YOUR VOICE 

• Contact your state representative to urge them to vote “yes” on this bill: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/WhereDoIVoteMA/bal/MyElectionInfo.aspx 

You can find your State Representative and Senator HERE. These elected officials work for you, and it is immensely important that they hear from their constituents about what you want them to do as your representative. Here is a script you can use to email or call your representatives: 

Dear Representative/Senator [NAME],  

My name is [NAME] and I am Calling/Emailing on behalf of [ORGANIZATION]. I live in your district and wanted to talk to you about a piece of legislation that is crucial to helping end family homelessness in Massachusetts. This bill is incredibly important to me and I would really appreciate your advocacy around, especially by co-sponsoring the bill.  

On any given night in our state, 18,471 people experience homelessness, a number that has more than doubled since 1990, and over 12,000 of them are in families with children. Since 2007, no other State in America has seen a larger increase in family homelessness. It doesn’t have to be this way! There are concrete laws that can be passed that will drastically transform Massachusetts into a State where homelessness really is brief, rare, and non-recurring.  

As your constituent, here is the bill I’d like you to co-sponsor and support: 

Bill H.264/S.142: An Act providing a bill of rights for people experiencing homelessness 

This bill would protect the fundamental human rights that all people experiencing homelessness should have. It is necessary as a democratic state to protect the rights of all citizens, especially those who face times of hardship. 

Sincerely, [NAME] 

• LEARN MORE 

• See our blog for more information: https://homesforfamilies.wordpress.com/ 

• SHARE THE CAUSE 

• Find us on Twitter @HFFma 
• Find us on Facebook @homesforfamilies 

The lead sponsors of this Bill are: 

• Senator Becca Rausch, Representative Smitty Pignatelli, & Representative Frank Moran 

To read the full Bill, please visit: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/192/SD1467 

HFF Legislative Priority 8: An Act Guaranteeing a Tenant’s First Right of Refusal

Why Do We Need This Bill?  

As the COVID-19 eviction moratorium ends, the scarcity of affordable housing for low-income families in Massachusetts will be further exacerbated by widespread foreclosures. Speculative buyers have already set up post-pandemic investment funds in these previously affordable housing properties. Large investment firms will buy these distressed properties and convert them to luxury condominiums when prices rise in the future.  

An act to guarantee a tenant’s first right of refusal will preserve the stock of affordable and subsidized housing for low-income tenants. This bill encompasses the Tenant’s Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), which will give tenants, or their designated buyers, more time and opportunity to assemble financing and buy these properties before luxury developers. This will not only preserve the affordability of rental housing, but also help facilitate conversion to subsidized property.  

How Does This Bill Work? 

Tenants will have an opportunity to purchase the rental property first when it is put up for sale. When the current owner receives a third party offer to purchase the property, the tenant must be notified. The renter would then have the opportunity to purchase with the same price and conditions.  Furthermore, the offer must be presented within a reasonable time frame that is typical in the normal market, and the sale prices must be market-rate. The right of first refusal applies only to tenants in good standing who are renting investor-owned properties. It does not apply to tenants in owner-occupied properties or small landlords.  

If the tenants cannot purchase the property, they may form a tenant association made up of tenants in at least 51% of the tenant-occupied units to collectively purchase or designate a buyer for the property. The designated buyer may be any organization, developer, or government agency who can secure financing and intends to maintain affordable rent. Not only is TOPA cost-neutral for the state, but it is an enabling act, meaning it will only go into effect if municipalities accept it. 

This is a brief diagram by CHAPA depicting the process of right of first refusal:  

Who will this Bill Help? 

Displacement and evictions disproportionately affect people of color, single mothers, people with disabilities and, other vulnerable groups. TOPA will protect communities from further inequity as it creates pathways to ownership for tenants.  

History of the Bill 

The Tenant’s Right of First Refusal/Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) is not a new bill. This act was first enacted in Washington D.C and has helped preserve thousands of homes. Furthermore, versions of this bill have been successful in many states and cities such as San Francisco, Berkeley, California, Chicago, New Hampshire, as well as Washington D.C.  

For More Information: 

How Can You Help? 

Write/call your elected officials.   

You can find your State Representative and Senator HERE. These elected officials work for you, and it is immensely important that they hear from their constituents about what you want them to do as your representative. Here is a script you can use to email or call your representatives: 

Dear Representative/Senator [NAME],  

My name is [NAME] and I am Emailing on behalf of [ORGANIZATION]. I live in your district and wanted to talk to you about a piece of legislation that is crucial to helping end family homelessness in Massachusetts. This bill is incredibly important to me and I would really appreciate your advocacy around, especially by co-sponsoring the bill.  

On any given night in our state, 18,471 people experience homelessness, a number that has more than doubled since 1990, and over 12,000 of them are in families with children. Since 2007, no other State in America has seen a larger increase in family homelessness. It doesn’t have to be this way! There are concrete laws that can be passed that will drastically transform Massachusetts into a State where homelessness really is brief, rare, and non-recurring.  

As your constituent, here is the bill I’d like you to co-sponsor and support:  

HD.1426/S.890: An Act to guarantee a tenant’s first right of refusal 

This bill would give tenants an opportunity to purchase the rental property first when it is put up for sale. This will prevent speculative buyers from decreasing the stock of affordable and subsidized housing for low-income tenants.   

Sincerely, [NAME] 

2. Use social media!  

Follow HFF on Twitter and Facebook to learn more about TOPA. Tweet directly at your Representatives and Senators! 

FACT SHEET draft: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEhnbF8D0g/7p6DtsUr8FtmMrTto4bogw/edit 

HFF Legislative Priority 7: An Act Promoting Housing Opportunity and Mobility Through Eviction Sealing (HOMES)

In the state of Massachusetts, no matter the outcome of an eviction case—even if it is dismissed or the final judgment is made in the tenant’s favor—the case remains publicly available online forever. As a result, even decades after an eviction case is filed in court, individuals with eviction records can experience significant difficulty attaining housing, credit, insurance, and employment. Over 1 million eviction cases have been filed in the Commonwealth since 1988, and people of color and women with children are most at risk of being denied opportunities because of these public records, as they are more statistically vulnerable to eviction.  

Sealing eviction records is a matter of social justice. Black tenants are twice as likely as white tenants to face eviction in Massachusetts. Families with young children, those with disabilities, seniors, and victims of domestic violence are also at disproportionately high risk of eviction. Evictions themselves uproot people’s lives, but for these particularly at-risk groups, the court records may be even more harmful, as they last a lifetime.  

Landlords who find evictions on an individual’s record may reject their rental application or use the record as justification to charge them a higher rent or security deposit. Landlords may also exploit people’s fear of eviction and neglect to complete legally required rental property repairs and upkeep. Tenants may suffer in inadequate, even dangerous living conditions or concede to an unlawful lease termination in order to avoid permanent records of eviction. This is not to mention the enormous potential obstacles to obtaining credit or holding onto a stable job due to public eviction records. 

What if tenants do unfortunately find themselves embroiled in an eviction case? As mentioned in our previous blog post on the Right to Counsel, because evictions unfold in civil court, defendants are not guaranteed legal advice or representation. Since tenants typically do not have the means to hire their own attorneys but most landlords do, the outcome of an eviction case is overwhelmingly skewed in a landlord’s favor. That’s if tenants even show up. According to the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, many tenants are unable to attend court due to school, job, or childcare conflicts and receive a judgment against them by default. Some are never even notified of the action against them in the first place. 

The aforementioned reasons are enough to cast real doubt on the use of eviction records as an accurate characterization of a person’s tenancy, employability, or credit-worthiness. However, these court records are not just dangerous because eviction cases are overwhelmingly unfair, the records themselves fail to tell a complete story of one’s eviction experience.  

The MLRI found a number of serious and recurring issues with the eviction records readily accessible to the public via MassCourts.org. They discovered that many records are riddled with errors, such as misclassification of no-fault evictions as fault evictions and duplication of cases on people’s records. In addition, final outcomes are written in legal shorthand, ambiguous to laymen readers, and judgments paid in full are rarely reflected in the online record. Once again to the detriment of defendants in these cases, landlords’ allegations are displayed clearly online, while tenants’ statements of defense or claims against their landlords do not appear. 

People who, as children, were named in eviction cases concerning their parents and therefore have records, face discrimination as adults. So do people with the same name as that of an actual defendant in an eviction case. Plenty of families and individuals face eviction because the landlord wishes to sell the property, a new owner decides to renovate the apartment, extensive repairs are required, or because of a slew of other reasons besides non-payment of rent or lease violation. However, the MLRI found that landlords and others seeking out these records rarely differentiate between parties based on the outcomes of their eviction cases; just the presence of a record, whether or not a tenant was at fault, even if the case occurred decades prior, was enough to affect their ability to secure housing, employment, and credit. 

Given the evidence the MLRI laid out, we can longer treat eviction records as an accurate account of a person’s life situation, and this state must no longer sit idly by while landlords, employers, and others in power use these records to prey upon low-income renters, exclude them, and judge their reliability and worth. 

The HOMES Act seeks to protect individuals from the potential negative impacts of open eviction records in several ways, but first, here are a few important definitions: 

• A tenant may be subject to a “fault eviction” when they have violated the terms of their rental agreement, including failure to pay rent or to vacate the premises following termination or conclusion of their tenancy as specified in the agreement. 
• A “no-fault eviction”, on the other hand, occurs due to a reason other than a tenant’s nonpayment of rent or other violation of the terms of the tenancy, such as when a landlord decides to remove the unit from rental housing use or demolish the rental property. 
• Finally, “lessor action” is any civil action a tenant brings against a landlord or property manager due to a violation of the rental agreement or another law. 

H.1808 and S.921 promise to: 

• Keep eviction cases sealed unless and until an allegation is proven in court 

• Keep sealed no-fault evictions and other housing cases, such as when tenants are seeking repairs 
• Seal all eviction records after 3 years 
• Allow individuals to petition the court to seal records of fault eviction and lessor action cases before 3 years have passed if they have satisfied their judgments or agreements for judgment 
• Allow parties and their representatives to view sealed cases online 
• Ensure that parties may correct any errors in their eviction records 

• Prohibit consumer reporting agencies or landlords from using or reporting information from a sealed court record 

People should not have to bear an eternal burden because of their prior involvement in eviction cases, whether or not they were found to be at fault. With evictions on the rise due to pandemic-related financial hardship and the recently extended federal eviction moratorium set to end on October 3^rd, our legislators must act swiftly. Contact your state representatives and encourage them to stand with lead sponsors Sen. Joe Boncore and Rep. Mike Moran against discrimination based on eviction records by co-sponsoring the HOMES Act!  

Please contact Director of Policy Benjamin Daly at bdaly@homesforfamilies.org with any questions, comments, or concerns! 

For a comprehensive report on the impacts of Massachusetts’ permanent eviction records, read Massachusetts Law Reform Institute’s “Evicted for Life” here. 

To read the full Bill, please visit https://malegislature.gov/Bills/192/H1808 and https://malegislature.gov/Bills/192/S921. 

HFF Legislative Priority 6: Right to Counsel in Evictions

 An Act promoting housing stability and homelessness prevention in Massachusetts (S. 874 & H.1436) 

COVID-19 has further exacerbated the housing crisis by increasing the threat of evictions for low-income families. Without an eviction moratorium in place, there is no telling how many evictions would have been filed, but estimates are in the hundreds of thousands, and maybe even a million. Now that the eviction moratorium has expired, evictions are about to come roaring back because tenants have no protections and have not fully recovered from the pandemic.

While tenants may try to fight their eviction case in court, fewer than 10% of tenants are able to obtain legal representation. In contrast, 80% of landlords are represented by legal counsel. This imbalance favors landlords and often results in unjust evictions. Most evictions happen very quickly and with complicated procedural rules, which means a majority of these tenants are forced to navigate this complex process on their own. Landlords often take advantage of this and file meritless eviction cases, knowing that they are more likely to win in court.  

• Source: Massachusetts Trial Court Department, FY 2020 
• Published visual of legal representation imbalance by CHAPA 

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WHAT WILL A RIGHT TO COUNSEL BILL DO?

Senator DiDomenico, along with Rep. Rogers, and Rep. Day have filed a bill in both the House and the Senate that will establish a right to counsel for eviction cases. Bills S.874 and H.1436 will ensure low-income households have access to resources, including full legal representation in eviction cases, which will promote housing stability and prevent homelessness. This will be executed with a pilot Right to Counsel program.  

How does the Right to Counsel Program Work?  

The Right to Counsel Program is administered by the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC). MLAC provides free and full legal assistance and representation with state funding by contracting not-for-profit organizations. This may include legal advice, advocacy, and assistance associated with representation, including the filing of a notice of appearance on behalf of the eligible individual. To qualify, individuals must receive certain public assistance benefits, have an after-tax income that is 80% or less of the area median income (AMI), or be unable to pay for legal representation without impacting life necessities.

The MLAC will provide a form that will notify individuals of their eligibility for a right to legal counsel in eviction proceedings. However, if an eligible tenant or occupant does not receive an approved form or the legal counsel does not have time to file a response, legal assistance must be obtained for the lawsuit to continue. This ensures that tenants and owner-occupants will not be forced to default and accept eviction due to the limited timeline. Furthermore, MLAC will put together an advisory committee that consists of low-income tenants, community-based organizations, statewide advocacy organizations, municipal officials, and others committed to housing stability.  

This is an emergency law and is necessary for public safety in preventing homelessness, overcrowding, and displacement; therefore, this act will not be deferred and will be put into effect immediately if passed.  

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BRIEF HISTORY OF BILL 

In 2021, both Connecticut and Washington passed right to counsel bills for eviction cases, and cities like New York City, Louisville, Cleveland, and Los Angeles have invested in tenant representation and implemented RTC programs successfully. According to Cleveland’s RTC interim report, 93% of their RTC clients who faced eviction were able to avoid displacement, and other cities with similar programs have a 75 to 85% success rate. New York City reports that their eviction rate declined about 30%, and 84% of the represented tenants were able to win their eviction cases in a 2019 report. HFF believes a RTC program will ensure families in Massachusetts will have long-term stable housing through the pandemic and after.  
 

Eviction Help 

If you are currently fighting an eviction without legal assistance, please refer to Greater Boston Legal Services’ Massachusetts Defense for Eviction (MADE) for self-guided eviction help HERE. This completely free guided interview is for Massachusetts tenants who are being evicted. It is estimated to take between 25 and 90 minutes for a typical tenant to use on their own. It will help you make sure that you respond to your landlord’s eviction case correctly. 

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HOW CAN YOU HELP? 

1. Write/call your elected officials.   

You can find your State Representative and Senator HERE. These elected officials work for you, and it is immensely important that they hear from their constituents about what you want them to do as your representative. Here is a script you can use to email or call your representatives: 

Dear Representative/Senator [NAME],  

My name is [NAME] and I am Emailing on behalf of [ORGANIZATION]. I live in your district and wanted to talk to you about a piece of legislation that is crucial to helping end family homelessness in Massachusetts. This bill is incredibly important to me and I would really appreciate your advocacy around, especially by co-sponsoring the bill.  

On any given night in our state, 18,471 people experience homelessness, a number that has more than doubled since 1990, and over 12,000 of them are in families with children. Since 2007, no other State in America has seen a larger increase in family homelessness. It doesn’t have to be this way! There are concrete laws that can be passed that will drastically transform Massachusetts into a State where homelessness really is brief, rare, and non-recurring.  

As your constituent, here is the bill I’d like you to co-sponsor and support: HD.1436/S.874: An Act promoting housing stability and homelessness prevention in Massachusetts. This bill will ensure low-income people have access to resources, including full legal representation in eviction cases. 

Sincerely, [NAME] 

2. Use social media!  

Follow HFF on Twitter and Facebook to learn more about RTC. Tweet directly at your Representatives and Senators! 

View Factsheet Draft: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEhnbF8D0g/7p6DtsUr8FtmMrTto4bogw/edit 

For more information, visit The Massachusetts Right to Counsel Coalition website: 

• https://www.massrtc.org/bills.html 

ACLU Tenant’s Right to Counsel Article: 

• https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/tenants-right-to-counsel-is-critical-to-fight-mass-evictions-and-advance-race-equity-during-the-pandemic-and-beyond/ 

Boston Bar Association RTC Report 

• https://bostonbar.org/docs/default-document-library/rtc-report-for-web-or-email.pdf 

Budget Update: Governor’s Proposed FY2022 State Budget

Governor Baker released his proposed FY2022 state budget last Wednesday, 1/27/2021, totalling $45.6 billion in gross spending. The budget is titled House 1.

You can find a PDF with all key budget documents here, including the Executive Summary, which highlights the Governor’s focus on “protecting core government services, providing significant support for local cities and towns, and encouraging economic growth and development without raising taxes on residents, while promoting a strong, equitable recovery from the COVID-19 public health emergency.” You can find the press release issued with the prosposed budget here, which highlights key sections of the budget in a format that is easier and quicker to read compared to the full budget document.

Of important note is the Governor’s continued committment to promoting “racial equality and opportunity.” His proposal includes over $30 million to support the recommendations of the Black Advisory Commission and the Latino Advisory Commission, which includes investments in teacher diversity, small business development, financial literacy, job placement programming, and workforce training.

Below is a preliminary analysis of key line items in the Governor’s House 1 Budget.

Emergency Shelter Assistance (7004-0101)
Funded at $195,885,750, increase of $11,100,000 over FY2021 budget of $184,785,750

• This investment maintains a total of 98 ADA-accessible units annually at an estimated cost of $5.2 million.
• This relatively small increase, coupled with the various unknowns related to the Procurement, is especially concerning for EA providers who are long-overdue for rate increases. This proposed budget is not enough to cover the cost of increasing rates for all providers, which is more critical now, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the many increased costs resulting from it, than ever before.

Analysis courtesy of MA Law Reform Institute

• Retains language intended to protect many families and children from first having to prove they slept in a place not meant for human habitation before they can be eligible for shelter. Advocates continue to push for clarification about how this new language will be implemented so that children must not first sleep in cars, emergency rooms, or other inappropriate places before they can access shelter.
• Continues to allow families to maintain eligibility for EA until they exceed 200% of the federal poverty guideline for 90 consecutive days.
• Adds language directing DHCD to attempt to convert scattered site units to congregate units, and to generally reduce the number of scattered site units.

HomeBASE (7004-0108)
Funded at $25,970,612, a decrease of $3,088,006 over FY2021 budget of $29,058,618

• To support projected costs for 3,000 households
• Maintains the maximum assistance level in a 12-month period at $10,000

Analysis courtesy of MA Coalition for the Homeless

• Maintained the one-year cap on HomeBASE benefits, which would mean that many families participating in the short-term transitional housing program would face evictions and a return to homelessness without alternative interventions and resources.

Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (7004-9024)
Funded at $135,000,000, the same as the FY2021 budget of $135,000,000

• To support an estimated 9,771 vouchers in FY22, an increase of 42% compared to FY15

Analysis courtesy of MA Coalition for the Homeless

• $122,645,860 in direct appropriations combined with additional funds from outside the operating budget. As the Governor said in budget press conference and in budget summary documents, total funding would be $135 million. Anticipate that the additional funds will be drawn from unspent MRVP funds from FY21.

Analysis courtesy of MA Law Reform Institute

• Continues the provision in previous budgets setting the MRVP income limits at 80% of area median (“low-income”) and allowing DHCD to target up to 75% of the vouchers to extremely low-income households with incomes of not more than 30% of area median. Maintains the current language requiring each household to pay at least 30%, but not more than 40%, of income for rent; however, House 1 allows households, at their option, to pay more than 40% of income for rent, provided that amount is not more than 40% of the household’s income in the first year of occupancy.
• The Governor’s budget again proposes to remove the requirement in the current and previous budgets that DHCD report to the Legislature on MRVP utilization, including the number and average value of rental vouchers distributed. House 1 omits the requirement in the current budget that DHCD must submit an annual report to the Secretary of Administration and Finance and the Legislature on the number of outstanding vouchers and the number of types of units leased.

It’s not too early to take action!
Voice your concerns to Governor Baker and provide feedback on his budget recommendations by phone at 1-888-870-7770 or by email.

For additional analysis on the above line items and more, here is Massachusetts Law Reform’s analysis, as well as, a chart of MA Coalition for the Homeless’ priorities and outcomes.

This is the first step in a long process of creating the FY2022 state budget. FY2022 begins July 1, 2021. Between now and then, there will be opportunities to advocate to the House, the Senate, and the Governor as we work to ensure that the collective voice of providers and families are heard! The next major step in the state budget process will be when the House Ways and Means budget is released, likely in mid-April. You can track the progress of the budget and read more about each step in the process here.

Please feel free to reach out with questions, additional intel, your take on the budget, or anything else!

Lauren Antonelli M.A.
Interim Director of Operations & Member Engagement

Better Understanding Public Charge

We previously posted on how you can take action to prevent the public charge rule from taking effect, and despite Massachusetts and and other states surpassing their goals on advocacy in opposition to the proposed changes around public charge, the new rules are slated to take effect October 15th. Some members of the immigrant community will be assessed more harshly when officials are determining if they will be a public charge, and their applications for legal status therefore denied.

We had the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Coalition (MIRA) present at our September Community Meeting. They are a part of a larger nationwide coalition Protecting Immigrant Families, and emphasized that no one needs to un-enroll in benefits. Immigrants affected by public charge assessments are those who will not be found eligible for public benefits to begin with.

For more on what public charge is, what will be changing, and how you can take action see MIRA’s fact sheet. You can also go to https://ProtectingImmigrantFamilies.org/. Congress can act to prevent the Trump administration from having the funding to carry out the rule changes. You can get your voice on record with your congresspeople, via the Protecting Immigrant Families website, where it says Take Action. Most likely, our best bet to stop the changes, is through one of the 6 lawsuits underway.

You can also share stories of impacted families with your elected officials (if it’s not your story of course seek families’ approval and keep their information anonymous). All stories are helpful: not only related to public charge, but as they relate to other immigration issues including on the pending HUD proposal that would make families of mixed immigrant status ineligible for section 8 housing. See our previous post on this!

In solidarity with immigrant families,

Team HFF

New Restrictive Child Care Regulations May Impact Families

Did you know that a lot of decisions that impact child care access and quality in Massachusetts happen outside of legislation, outside of the state budget, and outside, often times, of public view? State agencies that run important statewide services like housing, shelter, and child care actually have a lot of autonomy in rules (policies and regulations) they set that impact families seeking and receiving those services. While we spend a lot of time advocating for important legislation and state funding (which IS really important) we also spend time working with state agencies directly around how to improve the policies and regulations that they have control over. This is called administrative advocacy (a.k.a  advocacy to the Governor’s administration, since all state agencies report to the Governor). We always do this advocacy in a way that is informed by the HFF network of family shelter providers and families experiencing homelessness. There’s opportunity right now for you to learn more, and prepare to take action, on certain regulations at the Department of Early Education and Care in regards to child care services.

Following a change in federal law, some new subsidized child care regulations took effect in March, 2019. The really great news is that the federal law says that child care has to be authorized for 12 months at a time, so that families don’t need to jump through hoops multiple times through out the year to continually get their child care re-authorized. During the 12-month period, child care can only be terminated for a few narrow reasons.

However, some of the Massachusetts state policies that were issued in March to implement the new federal law, are concerning and depart from the intention of the federal law including:

• Requiring unnecessary reporting of information by families to EEC;
• Making relatively minor infractions liable to be counted towards intentional program violations or fraud (for example, if a consumer does not return a request for information); and
• Significantly limiting which education programs are to count as a “service need” or valid reason a parent needs child care. Some of the quality education programs subsidy holders are enrolled in right now no longer count based on the MA policy.
• Fees associated with subsidized care also continue to be far more expensive than the federal benchmark for affordability.

These new regulations do not impact everyone accessing subsidized child care in Massachusetts, for example folks with a Department of Children and Families (DCF) contract slot or a Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) cash assistance program (TAFDC) voucher are largely not affected, but parents accessing other types of subsidies like a basic income eligible subsidy for child care, homeless contract slots, or teen parent contract slot are more likely to be affected.

What are your thoughts, questions, experiences?

If you or someone you work with or know may be struggling with some of the barriers posed by these policies, please reach out to Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS). Regardless of where you are in Massachusetts, GBLS may be able to provide legal help and are interested in gathering stories to help in advocacy to change these policies. You can contact Sarah Levy slevy@gbls.org, 617-603-1619 or GBLS’s Welfare Law Unit at:  617-603-1806. If you may be interested in attending the next Department of Early Education and Care board meeting to share your thoughts on the policies during their open comment period, please let us or GBLS know and we will keep you posted when the meeting date is announced.

Liz and Team HFF

Hearing Alert! Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities

DTA, Children and Families, Two Generational Approaches and the Cliff Effect

 

Background on Hearings:

Tuesdays are generally the most happening days at the State House for Committee Hearings. Hearings are an opportunity for legislators and the general public to give and listen to testimony relative to specific bills.   Hearings are led by the Chairs of the Joint Committees, and other committee members are also present. There are 29 distinct joint committees – from the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy (no pun intended) to the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs and the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. For a full list of Joint Committees – click here. For the Hearing Calendar, click here.

Upcoming Hearing of Interest:

Next Tuesday, July 16^th, there will be 6 distinct committee hearings. The Joint Committee on Children and Families will be hosting a hearing relative to DTA, Children and Families, Two Generational Approaches and the Cliff Effect.  The Hearing is scheduled for 10 AM in Hearing Room B1 – which is easily accessed through the Bowdoin Street Entrance/Ashburton Plaza, as demonstrated by this cool map feature on the Massachusetts Legislature website.

There are 15 bills listed on the website and copy and pasted below. You can click on the distinct Bill Numbers to learn more about each proposed piece of legislation; and then click on “View Text” to read the language as it was filed by the Legislator. You can also click on the Legislator’s name to see their picture and contact information, about their district, committees they serve on and other legislation they have filed. Because bills are filed in the House and the Senate, some may be identical or similar. When the corresponding legislation is accounted for, there are 9 distinct Bills.  All are very well intended to better address poverty, homelessness, and public benefits in the Commonwealth.

 

Bill Summaries:

1. S.36/H.102 An Act to lift kids out of deep poverty would increase the benefit amount of TAFDC cash benefits by 10% each fiscal year until the payment standard for the household size equals 50% of the Federal Poverty Level.
2. S.65/H.107 An Act establishing a diaper benefits pilot program would test ways to distribute diapers for children in households with low incomes.
3. S.57/H.174 An act concerning public assistance for working families and the creation of a pilot program to address the impacts of the cliff effect: would aim to mitigate the cliff effect by establishing a test program in Western Massachusetts, and include the EDC and Working Cities Group, the Department of Transitional Assistance using the MA Earned Income Tax Credit Program and other benefit programs and resources.
4. S.67/H.013 An Act proving immediate child care assistance to homeless families would codify that families in EA, DV, and recovery shelters receiving TAFDC shall be eligible for a child care voucher. It also would mandate that children in shelters, aged 0-3, would be screened for developmental risk factors and delays in coordination with the Department of Public Health.
5. S.76.H.150 An Act Relative to the safety, dignity and civil rights of persons experiencing homelessness, otherwise known as the Act of Living Bill, which would extend anti-discrimination protections to persons experiencing homelessness. Here is a fact sheet.
6. S.31 An Act providing for coordinated data and assistance to address family homelessness would mandate improved data collection and reporting by state agencies relative to family homelessness and establish a hotline and calculator tools for families, and those assisting families facing housing instability, for information about benefits and eligibility and potential cliff effects. Here is a fact sheet.
7. S.25/H.130 An act establishing a special commission on the status of homeless women would mandate a commission of legislators, state agency officials, and the lieutenant governor or their designee, other housing and service providers, and someone who has experienced homelessness meet, collect data and research, and submit a report with recommendations for improved policies and programs.
8. H.160 An act to end child homelessness would not permit evictions from public/subsidized housing or terminations from shelter until and unless the Department of Children and Families and Department of Housing and Community Development have developed and implemented a plan to assure all children under 18 will be housed in a location which is fit for human habitation.
9. H.105 An Act to promote employment would ensure education and training programs are considered adequate for any work-related requirements for TAFDC and that appropriate and comprehensive screenings and assessments are considered.

What Happens at the Hearing and Beyond?

Interested parties (which can mean YOU or anyone who wants to weigh in) have the opportunity to submit written testimony and/or provide oral testimony to the committee.  Here is a helpful tip sheet from the Citizen Advocacy Center.  There will likely be a sign-up sheet outside the hearing room for those that want to provide oral testimony and a place to drop off written testimony. Generally, the bills are heard in the order in which they are listed, and Legislators and/or other State Officials are permitted to go out of turn. Public Testimony should be limited to 3 minutes. You can also just observe and submit written testimony after.

The Committee will take the full slate of testimony into consideration and has the opportunity to “re-draft” the language of the bill, which means they can make changes and refine the legislation to address any concerns, add ideas, etc.  Then the Committee can report out bills favorably, where it may then go to another committee, and hopefully, eventually, will land on the Governor’s desk for him to sign into law or veto. For a reminder of How a Bill Becomes a Law, here is the Schoolhouse Rock! Many bills linger around and expire with the Legislative Session, and may be refiled, or addressed in other ways – through the State Budget, programmatically, etc.  Our voices are always helpful for legislators to learn and understand more about homelessness and ways to better manage and solve the crisis and address housing and other inequities plaguing our Commonwealth.

AND…..after the hearing is another hearing!!! The Judiciary Committee is hosting a hearing at 1pm in Room A-1 (follow another cool map upstairs). They have a full slate of legislation related to Right to Council, rent escrow, vacancies due to foreclosure, and the HOMES Act which would seal eviction records. Click here for more on that. And check out the hearing page for the full list.

 

We would love to hear from you, what are your questions, concerns, and ideas? Which Bills do you support? Are there items that you oppose? Let us know!  

 

 

 

S.36	An Act to lift kids out of deep poverty	Sal N. DiDomenico
H.102	An Act to reduce deep poverty among kids	Marjorie C. Decker
S.65	An Act establishing a diaper benefits pilot program	Joan B. Lovely
S.57	An Act concerning public assistance for working families and the creation of a pilot program to address the impacts of the cliff effect	Eric P. Lesser
H.174	An Act concerning public assistance for working families and the creation of a pilot program to address the impacts of the cliff effect	Aaron Vega
S.67	An Act providing immediate childcare assistance to homeless families	Joan B. Lovely
H.103	An Act providing immediate childcare assistance to homeless families	Marjorie C. Decker
S.76	An Act relative to the safety, dignity, and civil rights of persons experiencing homelessness	Rebecca L. Rausch
S.31	An Act providing for coordinated data and assistance to address family homelessness	Joanne M. Comerford
S.25	An Act establishing a special commission on the status of homeless women	Harriette L. Chandler
H.160	An Act to end child homelessness	Denise Provost
H.150	An Act relative to the safety, dignity, and civil rights of persons experiencing homelessness	Liz Miranda
H.130	An Act establishing a special commission to study women and homelessness	Kate Hogan
H.107	An Act establishing a diaper benefits pilot program	Mindy Domb
H.105	An Act to promote employment	Marjorie C. Decker

Graphic by BG

Post by LH

Immigrant Rights are Human Rights: An Urgent Call to Action

HUD published a proposed rule that would evict ineligible members of mixed immigration status families from living together with section 8 and in public housing, breaking families apart. For more information on the proposed rule, see this fact sheet from The National Low Income Housing Coalition and the National Housing Law Project.

Homes for Families opposes any and all attacks on immigrants and their children, including this proposed change and we are urging our network to join us in submitting public comment in opposition by July 9th.

There is a lot of guidance for how to do this and ideas on what you can say! The KeepFamiliesTogether campaign is a place to go for information. They have put together a website through which you can  submit comments directly to the government. There is also a Template for Submitting comments they created, that you can access here (you can opt not to enter personal information to access the template).

Homes for Families has created a template we thought would be especially helpful for family shelter providers.

We continue to stand in solidarity with all families, and all family members, regardless of immigration status and hope you will too.

The 2020 State Budget: Senate Ways and Means Edition

Boldly Moving Massachusetts Forward is the theme of the Senate Ways and Means (SWM) budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. The proposal was released on Tuesday afternoon and amendments were due Friday by mid day. The Chairman’s letter, a summary, list of committee members and the budget proposal can be found here.

Unlike the House, where amendments are listed in the order in which they are filed, the Senate Amendments are listed by category and color coded.  Amendments on shelter and housing issues are listed under the Housing and Economic Development Category, ECO for short, and flagged with the color blue. The full list of Amendments can be found here.  And just click on the ECO, or other categories of interest.

Below is a quick summary of the proposal and the primary amendments that we are advocating for building up to the debates, which are scheduled to begin the week of May 20th.

Emergency Assistance Family Shelter:

The family shelter system was funded at $178M, which should be sufficient to cover the cost of 12 month shelter contracts based on the current caseload. As with previous Senate Ways and Means proposals, the language to allow eligibility for families at imminent risk of homelessness was included.

provided further, that temporary emergency assistance shall be provided to families who, on the date of application for emergency assistance, have no other feasible alternative housing as defined under 760 CMR 67.06(1)(b) and who, but for not having spent 1 night in a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings including, but not limited to, a car, park, abandoned building, medical facility, bus or train station, airport or campground, would be eligible for emergency assistance under clauses (i) to (iv), inclusive; provided further, that not later than March 2, 2020, the department shall submit a report to the house and senate committees on ways and means detailing expenditures under the previous proviso including the number of families who received emergency assistance;

In addition, the SWM proposal includes additional data and reporting requirements and has some other variations from the House proposal and current budget language.

Homes for Families is advocating for two amendments to the EA Proposal:

756

ECO

Section 2 7004-0101

Chang-Diaz, Sonia

Clarification on Protections for HomeBASE Households

872

ECO

Section 2 7004-0101

O’Connor, Patrick M.

Supporting Income Increases for Homeless Families

 

Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program:

The SWM committee proposes $110M for MRVP, a $10M increase to the program, and increases the Fair Market Rent cap from 2005 to current levels.

Homes for Families is advocating for an amendment to the MRVP Proposal:

715

ECO

Section 2 7004-9024

Crighton, Brendan P.

MRVP Program Improvements

 

HomeBASE:

The SWM proposal made recommended changes to the program relative to the access for households in domestic violence shelters, sober living programs, and substance abuse treatment programs; no additional changes were made and the proposed funding level matches the Governor and House proposals.

Homes for Families is advocating for an amendment to the HomeBASE Proposal:

690

ECO

Section 2 7004-0108

Tarr, Bruce E.

HomeBASE

 

We will be reviewing the full docket of amendments and compiling a list of items we support, oppose, and/or want folks to be aware of and sending out more information.  Please let your Senators know what amendments are important to you!

LH