LEGISLATIVE ACTION DAY 2025
Take Action to Prevent and End Homelessness and Promote Housing Stability:
Register to Join Breaktime at the State House for 2025 Legislative Action Day!
Join Breaktime and our friends at the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless on Monday, April 7th for Legislative Action Day 2025! Look forward to hearing from inspiring speakers – including Breaktime Associates – and learning how to advocate with legislators in the morning session. Meet with your state legislators and legislative staff to talk about issues and policy recommendations to address homelessness in Massachusetts in the afternoon. You can learn more about Breaktime's 2025 legislative (bill) priorities below.
2025 Legislative Action Day
Date: Monday, April 7, 2025
Time: 10 a.m.–12 p.m. (followed by meetings between legislative offices and constituents)
Location: Massachusetts State House, Great Hall (2nd floor)
Hosts: State Representative Jim O’Day and the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless
FEATURED ASSOCIATE SPEAKERS
We're proud to share that two Breaktime Associates will be featured speakers at 2025 Legislative Action Day! Join us on April 7th to hear these young adults bravely share about their experiences with homelessness to help create positive change in the community.
Randely "Dely" Rodriguez
Topic: TBA
Mofe "Mo" Oke
Topic: TBA
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Breaktime's Legislative (Bill) Priorities
1. Ease access to standard Massachusetts ID cards for people experiencing homelessness by eliminating the $25 fee and allowing alternative ways to verify Massachusetts residency without requiring a permanent address
An Act to provide identification to youth and adults experiencing homelessness​​
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The Mass ID access bill (a.k.a. Everyone Needs ID bill) would ease access to Mass IDs for people experiencing homelessness by waiving the $25 fee for IDs and easing the verification requirements for youth and adults who are unhoused and seeking IDs. The bill would apply to standard Mass IDs, not REAL ID Act-compliant Mass IDs, for which residents must provide additional verifications that meet federal standards. The Senate has unanimously passed versions of this bill in each of the past four sessions.
2. Permanently establish and improve the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) homelessness prevention program
An Act providing upstream homelessness prevention assistance to families, youth, and adults​
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This bill would put the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) homelessness prevention program into state statute and ensure that benefits are available to families and individuals earlier in a housing or utility crisis ("upstream", before a household has received a notice to quit or utility shut-off notice). The bill also seeks to streamline access, improve cross-agency collaboration, and allow households to receive up to twelve months of assistance, without arbitrary dollar caps. (The current cap is $7,000/family/year, regardless of household size or rent burden). In addition, the bill would require the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) to publicly post reports on RAFT to increase
transparency on how the program is operating and provide greater understanding of the families and individuals seeking RAFT assistance: how they are being referred, how many apply, how many are approved, how many are denied, what are their demographics, what are their rent and mortgage levels, what RAFT benefits they receive, and what is the housing status of participant households 6, 12, and 24 months after receiving financial assistance or services from RAFT.
3. Establish a bill of rights for people experiencing homelessness
The bill would provide additional civil rights protections for people experiencing homelessness​
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This bill would recognize and affirm various rights of people experiencing homelessness, such as 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. The bill would affirm the right to rest, eat, pray, and be in public spaces by amending the Commonwealth's public spaces laws, amend the Commonwealth's voting laws to affirm the right to vote and register to vote without a permanent address, amend the Commonwealth's antidiscrimination laws to include housing status, and repeal archaic sections of Massachusetts General Laws regarding so-called "tramps," "vagrants," and "vagabonds." The bill would give the Superior Court jurisdiction to enforce the rights included in the legislation.
Click here to see a full list of legislative priorities from the Mass Coalition for the Homeless