Your stories, our campaigns

Fighting against COVID-19, Fighting for Equity

MPHA has been one of our strongest allies in the effort to protect all workers – including black and brown low-wage frontline workers, many of whom are immigrants – from exposure to COVID-19 on the job. They understand, from a public health perspective, that ensuring worker health and safety is a central part of any successful strategy to contain the virus. They also recognize that addressing the needs of our workers is essential to our recovery and allows for an equitable response to this global pandemic.”

Al Vega
Director of Policy & Programs, Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH)

Long before the arrival of the coronavirus, MPHA was already at the forefront of a movement to create real health equity by fighting poverty and structural racism. So, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, we knew who would be hit the hardest – those who were already suffering the most.

We immediately formed the Task Force on Coronavirus & Equity and issued recommendations calling for policies to help protect communities of color, low-income people, immigrants, and people living in institutional settings, like homeless shelters and prisons.

As the scale of the economic fallout of the pandemic grows, we are striving to ensure that the cost of recovery is not born by the same communities who have already been hit the hardest by the virus.

Working to Stabilize Housing

Since the pandemic hit, MPHA has played a critical role in bringing together organizations working on many different issues to advocate for equity in the state’s response to COVID-19. Their leadership on the issue of housing instability was critical in passing the Eviction Moratorium, which protected thousands of Massachusetts residents from homelessness. As a member of the Task Force on Coronavirus & Equity, I appreciate both their collaborative approach to developing political strategy, and their ability to get results.”

Pamela Schwartz
Director, Western MA Network to End Homelessness

No one should lose their home during a public health emergency. That’s why one of the first recommendations from MPHA’s Task Force on Coronavirus & Equity was a temporary moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. MPHA is proud that, working in partnership with a broad coalition of partners, we succeeded in passing the nation’s strongest moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, which remained in effect for five months.

Since the expiration of the moratorium in October of 2020, we have been advocating for additional measures to stop mass evictions, including the COVID-19 Housing Stability Act, which would protect tenants who are unable to pay rent due to the impact of COVID-19 and create a fund to assist property owners who have lost income due to the pandemic (with a focus on small, owner-occupied, and nonprofit landlords). We are also continuing our support for the rental voucher program and other tenant protection measures.

Accelerating Investments in Local Public Health

MPHA is bringing the local public health community together to demand change, while also supporting our work to fight the pandemic. This year, we saw significant progress with the passage of new legislation and the first-ever line item for local public health in the state budget. Now we are pressing for the fundamental changes that are needed to ensure that ALL residents of Massachusetts have access to strong public health protections.”

Damōn Chaplin, Director, New Bedford Dept. of Public Health
Sigalle Reiss, President, MA Health Officers Association; Health Director, Town of Norwood
Ruth Mori, President, MA Public Health Nurses Association; Public Health Nurse, Town of Wayland

Local public health professionals are the unsung heroes who report cases, carry out contact tracing, enforce quarantine, implement public health orders, and participate in vaccination. In Massachusetts, however, the system they work within is funded and managed through 351 municipalities. As a result, it is underfunded, understaffed, and inequitable.

MPHA is determined to change that. Last year, we made important progress by passing legislation to provide public health training and grants for municipalities. We also secured the first-ever state budget allocation for local public health. Now, we are building a broad coalition to pass the Statewide Accelerated Public Health for Every Community (SAPHE 2.0) Act. This legislation will establish minimum public health standards for every community, ensure a qualified workforce, incentivize municipalities to share services, create a uniform data collection and reporting system, and dedicate state funding to support local public health.

It is time to stop applying Band-Aids to a broken system. Massachusetts residents deserve better. The time is now to achieve real and lasting change.

Speaking Out against Inequities in the Criminal Legal System

Working with MPHA to advocate for police accountability and decarceration has provided a powerful opportunity for public health voices and civil liberties voices to be aligned in calling for change. Together, we helped pass a landmark police accountability bill – an important first step in addressing the long history of structural racism in policing in our Commonwealth and charting a new path for the future.”

Oami Amarasingham, Esq.
Deputy Legislative Director, ACLU of Massachusetts

To realize our vision of a healthy Massachusetts, MPHA is committed to addressing the most important drivers of health – the social conditions that exist in our communities. A key component of this work is fighting structural racism, one of the root causes of health inequity. Structural racism is linked to an increased risk of food insecurity, lack of access to safe affordable housing, increased risks of incarceration, and exposure to police brutality, violence and other forms of trauma.

In an effort to bring a public health voice to policy debates on these issues, MPHA’s Board has voted to recommit MPHA to working both to dismantle structural racism and to lift up the voices of people most impacted by racism and other forms of oppression. Putting this commitment into practice, last year we partnered with a wide array of organizations to actively support police reform legislation, call for the decarceration of our prisons and jails, promote housing stability, and demand an equitable state response to the COVID-19 pandemic that acknowledges and addresses its devastating impact on communities of color.

Your stories, our campaigns — 2020

Your stories, our campaigns

Fighting against COVID-19, Fighting for Equity