Economic & Food Security

Public assistance programs provide food security and income support to low-income individuals and families with children so they can meet their basic needs.

MLRI tackles systemic barriers to accessing benefits and provides technical training and assistance to legal aid and social service advocates that help low-income individuals obtain public benefits.

Our economic and food security advocacy focuses on:

• fighting for fair and​ adequately funded​ programs that help low-income people, both US citizens and immigrants, meet their basic needs.
• cutting red-tape and other access barriers that prevent low-income people from connecting to the programs they are eligible for.
• working to preserve and strengthen public assistance programs that are critical to the lowest-income families and individuals in Massachusetts.
• reforming unfair or discriminatory state policies and practices that wrongly deny or deter access to benefits for eligible people.
• collaborating on advocacy initiatives with food banks and food pantries, health care organizations, social service providers, advocates for older adults, policymakers, faith groups, and community based organizations through leadership of the  500+ member SNAP Coalition, the 50+ organizations in the Hunger Free Campus Coalition, the 160+ organizations in the Lift Our Kids Coalition, and the 80+ organizations in the Feeding Our Neighbors Coalition.
• ensuring people with lived expertise are part of the policy debates that affect their lives.