Understand HOPE's Impact in Practice

Jane’s facing an uninhabitable living condition — her heat’s broken in the freezing Massachusetts winter — and a landlord that refuses to fix the problem. See what next steps in this challenge look like with and without a housing justice worker:

A Housing Problem

Jane Doe lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Boston with Joan, her young daughter. Jane had been taking classes at a university across the state, but moved back home to care for her ailing father, who recently passed away. To make ends meet, she’s been working multiple jobs, cleaning houses and waitressing at a local chain restaurant.

For the first year or so living in her new apartment, Jane had no issues. But then, in late December, her heat began to cut out. She slept next to Joan to make sure that her daughter stayed warm, but temperatures remained freezing. She contacted her landlord to try to fix the issue, worried for her daughter’s health. Her landlord promised to stop by to take a look immediately, but a week passed by. She followed up with her landlord, but he told her this time to figure it out herself and buy a space heater. Dipping into what few savings she had, Jane bought the heater. It only made a slight difference before it ended up breaking.

Without HOPE

Desperate to warm her apartment and protect her daughter, Jane considered other options. She knew paying for her own attorney was out of the question, but she heard from a neighbor tenant about civil legal aid organizations in the Greater Boston area that provide legal services to tenants facing poor living conditions. She found the contact information for one and called to ask for advice. Unfortunately, the organization had to turn her away — they had too many cases to handle at the moment. She called another, and another to the same result. Each time, the organization expressed how it wanted to help but could not: Boston and its surrounding areas have become increasingly expensive, a representative explained, leading to more people facing housing challenges and demanding their services.

What Happens Next

Jane told her landlord that the space heater broke, but he refused to do anything, claiming that it would just be too expensive to fix her apartment’s heating. Jane knew she’d have to pursue some kind of legal action to get any recourse.

Without HOPE

Having been turned away from legal aid organizations, Jane decided she’d just have to represent herself. She turned to AI for answers. From the results the platforms generated, she compiled some statutes and case law that she thought supported her claim that her landlord must provide her with sufficient heating. She presented her findings to her landlord and, at first, he was worried. But then he knocked on her door the next day and said, “I spoke with my attorney. The law you cited was all made-up. Good luck trying to sue me!””

Final Resolution

Jane knew that this experience would end one of two ways: Either legal action would compel her landlord to fix the heat, or the cold would force her to move out.

Without HOPE

Deterred by her landlord’s admonition that she’d never win in court, Jane stopped pursuing her legal rights. The lack of heating became untenable for her and her daughter. Jane looked for other apartments in the immediate area, wanting to stay close to her jobs and Joan’s school, but few places had availability and those that did were prohibitively expensive.

Left with no other options, she quit her jobs and unenrolled Joan, finding a place an hour away where prices were a little more affordable. Until she could find a new job, she planned to draw on the sparse savings she had. Her former landlord had kept her security deposit.

NOT JUST A STORY

The above story, though fictionalized, is typical of the kind of problems many Massachusetts residents are facing. There simply aren’t enough free-of-charge, direct-service attorneys to meet the escalating demand for housing legal aid, undermining this Commonwealth’s commitment to protect every resident’s dignity and ensure they’re treated fairly. Too many people, like Jane, have legal rights available but cannot secure legal representation to defend these rights, resulting in them being senselessly driven out of their homes by skyrocketing rents and deplorable living conditions.

That’s why we’ve developed the Housing Opportunity Provider Expansion (HOPE) initiative: to give people access to trained, competent legal representation where they’d otherwise have none (or be forced to rely on internet and AI platforms to handle legal processes full of jargon and procedural steps). For many, this type of legal assistance, even if it’s as simple as getting help filling out a form to request an inspection, could be the difference between being able to live securely and being ejected from their homes, their entire lives upended.

If this idea excites you as much as it does us, please consider calling on your representatives to make this policy a reality.

Call for Action