Working with Massachusetts Legislators Has Eased Food Insecurity, Kept People Housed, Moved Children Out of Deep Poverty

Boston, Mass. (December 21, 2021) – Through legal, policy, and legislative advocacy, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) helped thousands of families and individuals living in poverty throughout 2020 and 2021.  MLRI is a nonprofit poverty law and policy center that advocates to advance policies and practices that secure economic, racial, and social justice for low-income communities.

“No period in recent memory has placed as much stress on people living in poverty than the last 18 months,” said Georgia Katsoulomitis, MLRI’s executive director.  “MLRI has spent more than five decades fighting on their behalf at both the state and national levels. We have an expansive network of advocacy partners and community organizations we collaborate with to advance high impact initiatives.  This strong foundation allowed us to move quickly to work with Massachusetts legislators and with the Baker-Polito administration to help the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.  Those efforts have had considerable impact on the lives of thousands of Massachusetts residents throughout 2020 and 2021.”

On the legislative front, this year MLRI worked closely with legislators and policymakers in a number of initiatives that help low-income households throughout the state.

“MLRI has been fortunate to work with many Massachusetts legislators in both chambers who have worked tirelessly over the last two years to help families and individuals dealing with serious issues because of the pandemic. It is because of these legislators that so many people have received the assistance they need and we applaud their hard work,” said Jamie Hoag, Esq., President of MLRI’s Board of Directors.

Two significant examples include:

• Cash assistance is a vital lifeline for extremely low-income families to meet their basic needs and to live in dignity. TAFDC (Temporary Assistance to Families with Dependent Children, also known as welfare) benefits had not increased since 2000. EAEDC (Emergency Assistance for Elders, the Disabled and Children) benefits had not increased since 1988.  The Lift Our Kids campaign, co-led by MLRI and Greater Boston Legal Services and consisting of 150 coalition member organizations, successfully advocated for an increase in these benefits. Thanks to these efforts, approximately 26,000 families with 45,000 children (TAFDC) and 20,000 elders and persons with disabilities (EAEDC) received an approximately 20 percent increase in cash assistance benefits.

• In 2018, MLRI issued a report on the prevalence and impact of school meal shaming in Massachusetts, the practice of drawing attention to a student whose family owes money for school meals; typically students with meal debt were denied a hot school lunch or are provided with a cheese sandwich substitute (while their hot meal is discarded), and in some school districts it also means students cannot participate in sports, field trips, extracurricular activities and even graduation. Thanks to MLRI’s advocacy, this year Governor Baker signed legislation that prohibited school meal shaming in Massachusetts. Tens of thousands of students will now be spared from this cruel practice.

In addition, MLRI worked very closely with Project Bread to expand access to free school meals in school districts with high rates of poverty. The new law will require all school districts where 50+ percent of students are low-income to provide free meals to all students (unless the school applies for a waiver and proves that it would cause the school financial hardship).  MLRI and Project Bread estimate that approximately 10,000 students across Massachusetts will now be eligible for free school meals.

“The advocacy by MLRI and their partners was so important to delivering a comprehensive school nutrition bill to the Commonwealth during this pandemic,” said State Senator Cynthia Stone Creem.  “Because of their hard work and thoughtful advocacy, children across Massachusetts have better access to nutritious food, which is especially important for children from low-income families.”

“MLRI has been and continues to be the backbone of strong advocacy on behalf of our state’s most under-resourced families.  As a legislator and earlier in my career as a city councilor, I have relied heavily on their expertise both in helping individual constituents and in crafting and advocating for good public policy that upends systems and rules that exclude and harm people,” said State Representative Marjorie C. Decker. “Their partnership has been central to my legislative work in reducing poverty, in eliminating punitive regulations that hurt families in need, and in creating resiliency and strength systemically and on the ground in shelters, DTA offices, and within families.  I can’t imagine what this work would be like without their support and with them I am encouraged to imagine a society that no longer needs their advocacy.”

“Thanks to the continued advocacy of MLRI, tens of thousands of families in Massachusetts are better off today than they were a year ago,” said State Senator Sal DiDomenico, lead Senate sponsor of the Bill to Lift Kids out of Deep Poverty. “I am proud of the Legislature’s strong relationship with MLRI and we have worked together to increase grant funding and bring real change to the thousands of children and families living in deep poverty.”

“MLRI’s research and understanding of school nutrition issues were critical to legislators as we developed the school nutrition bill,” said State Representative Andy X. Vargas. “Their in-depth knowledge of how school lunch debt was negatively impacting thousands of children across Massachusetts helped inform our legislative solutions and strategy. We know that we can trust the information we receive from MLRI on how policies affect low-income families in the Commonwealth. I was honored to work with them as the lead House sponsor of this legislation.”

A few additional MLRI highlights include:

• This year, struggling households in Massachusetts had access to legal representation in pandemic-related eviction matters thanks to the COVID Eviction Legal Help Project, a statewide initiative MLRI helped to launch and co-managed with the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC), and funded through the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). With the help of legal aid partners throughout the state, over 4,600 cases were opened because of this project, with positive housing stability outcomes in 90 percent of closed cases receiving extended services.
• When the American Rescue Plan Act expanded the Child Tax Credit, MLRI collaborated with the Shah Family Foundation, Greater Boston Legal Services, Children’s HealthWatch, MassCAP and others to create FindYourFunds.org, an online one-stop-shop for accessing government tax benefits, and spread the word through robust outreach and media. There have been over 270,000 unique visitors to FindYourFunds.org and the site has been recognized by the White House as a model for Child Tax Credit outreach. About 58,000 Massachusetts eligible children were not automatically issued payments – FindYourFunds.org substantially reduced that gap and has brought millions of federal dollars to the lowest income Massachusetts families.
• Access to technology is a critical need in today’s society – yet many of our communities of color (as well as low-income households and rural communities) lack adequate access to technology or internet access. Through its Racial Equity & Justice Project, MLRI launched a statewide Digital Equity Project and formed a Digital Equity Work group to examine the racial digital divide and devise advocacy strategies to ensure broadband internet and technology is available and accessible to all households in the Commonwealth.

“It’s difficult to capture the full depth and breadth of MLRI’s work because it is so expansive. We are grateful to our advocacy partners, our legislative partners and policymakers, and to all those on the ground in communities throughout the state who fight for justice, fairness, and equity for all. Working together, we are collectively building a better Commonwealth,” Katsoulomitis said.

//End

About the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute

Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) is a nonprofit poverty law and policy center. It provides statewide advocacy and leadership in advancing laws, policies, and practices that secure economic, racial, and social justice for low-income people and communities. MLRI advances its mission through legal initiatives and policy reforms that address the root causes of poverty, remove barriers to opportunity, and create a path to economic stability for low-income individuals, families, and communities.  For more information, please visit www.mlri.org or follow us on Twitter (@MassLawReform) and Facebook.