ORGANIZING NOTES

June 24, 2025

No Kings Day (Yaas Queens)!!

From Boston, where Indivisible marchers joined the “Pride” parade, to the Berkshires to Martha’s Vineyard, No Kings Day demonstrators flowed into the streets protesting Trump’s autocratic rule. Infuriated by impetuous policies which gleefully sow chaos and cruelty in their wake, crowds across Massachusetts and the nation, joined in solidarity, declared their opposition to Trump’s illegal rampages through our institutions of government.

Counts of turnout vary from five-six million, people reported cited by the ACLU and the Guardian, to 13 million according to the Alt Park Service. There is general acknowledgement that it was potentially the second largest single-day protest, (comparable to the 2017 Women’s March), in modern U.S. History. 

ORMA and Mass-Care Testify for the

Medicare for All/ Single Payer Bill

Members of the ORMA Representative Council (RC) and Mass-Care joined forces to provide testimony with about seventy other testifiers at the Joint Committee on Healthcare Finance hearing on the Medicare for All bill, June 18th. Chris Spears introduced the three member, ORMA panel, explaining that of all the issues advocated for by ORMA’s 16,000 members, Medicare for All is the most popular.

Chris summarized the deterioration of the healthcare system in Massachusetts with  private equity funding exacerbating the number of hospital/clinic closures, the reductions in nursing staff, and the lack of essential equipment.  He reported that Medicare for All legislation has been put to voters via non-binding ballots in 69 state congressional districts since 1998 and it has won in 100% of those districts with an average endorsement rate of 67.5%.  Chris also reviewed the work of economist, Dr. Gerry Friedman of UMass Amherst, who has modeled the economic benefits of single payer healthcare in Massachusetts.

Other members of the ORMA panel included Dr. Martha Karchere who described a system that is the world’s most expensive while being one of it”s least effective and Dr. Rob McCarthy who recounted his experiences with patients attempting to cope with serious mental illness and/or addiction while trying to get mental health services in a system designed to deny coverage. Disappointingly only about one half of the Joint Health Care Finance Committee were in attendance and throughout the day those numbers diminished further.

ORMA is currently recruiting to build a Medicare for All/ Single Payer working group to help organize and pressure the legislature to pass single payer healthcare legislation for the people of Massachusetts. The situation is worsening with the state’s own Health Policy Commission report admitting that we are approaching a crisis of escalating cost even without the  threatened Medicaid and Medicare cuts called for in the Omnibus bill in the Senate. The Medicare for All/ Single Payer economic model developed by Gerry Friedman predicts annual savings of $34 billion which would more than pay for services cut by the Omnibus bill.

ORMA members interested in joining an ORMA Medicare for All/ Single payer working group are urged to contact Dr. Rob McCarthy. Volunteer Here

How to make a problem worse:

Trump is ending funding for about half of the vouchers that subsidize rents for low income households.  This will create a housing crisis for about 46,000 Massachusetts households.  A few cities, such as Cambridge, have sufficient reserve funds to provide emergency aid for a year.  Overall, there will be evictions, there will be small landlords who won’t have the rent money to pay their mortgages, and large landlords who will let their buildings fall into disrepair.

There are immediate steps to relieve some of the pain:

• Banning Broker’s Fees: Please support Governor Healey’s budget proposal to require that residential rental brokers’ fees be paid by the contracting agent (typically, the landlord), ensuring that renters are not burdened with unexpected and extraordinary costs.

• Real Estate Transfer Fee (H.3056 / S.1937): This bill allows local municipalities to tax real estate transfers.

• Access to Counsel: (House line item 0321-1800). Please advocate for an allocation of $3 million to ensure that tenants facing eviction have access to counsel

• Emergency Assistance for Families: Please press for an appropriation of $225 million for Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT), which prevents displacement by providing short-term emergency assistance to keep families stably housed.

• Tenant opportunity to Purchase; (H.1544 / S.998):  An Act to guarantee a tenant’s first right of refusal

• Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP): (H. 1547 S. 1008)  Please advocate for an appropriation of $258 million for this bill, which provides long-term rental subsidies to approximately 10,000 low-income households.

Rent Control:   (H.2328 / S.1447 This is the means to immediately stop skyrocketing rent increases.) This Act enables cities and towns to stabilize rents and protect tenants 

A new path to the creation of affordable housing

The underlying housing problem is the need for 200,000 new units to house Massachusetts’s low- and moderate-income households.  Despite the demand, developers are not rushing to build. The high prices caused by Trump’s tariffs and the loss of immigrant construction workers, due to ICE’s deportation efforts, have shut down new construction of market-rate housing. If there is going to be significant new housing construction, it will come through government funding.The new housing will not be old-fashioned public housing; these are being closed down, and those that still exist are so tightly managed by housing authorities that they are unpleasant to live in.  Other types of affordable housing are not being built at a fast enough pace, relying on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, a limited and restrictive funding source, or built through individual cities’ inclusionary zoning policies. These rent-subsidized inclusionary units are not being built because they don’t generate high profits.

The alternative is a 100 year old solution known as Social Housing (SH).  SH began in Vienna in the 1920s.  What is it?   It is government or government/non-profit owned rental housing that includes market rate, moderate, and low income units.   The core element of their financial success is that the income from the expensive apartments covers the subsidies for the lower income units, and provides a surplus for investment in new construction.  What’s more, the housing is managed by the tenants and the community, not a government agency.

The deepening housing crisis across the U.S. has sparked real interest in SH.   Maryland, Rhode Island, and Georgia have built or are building SH.   Seattle passed a form of millionaire’s tax to finance SH.  Chicago and Boston set aside $100 million in funds for SH.  If your city needs housing, now is the time to bring SH to people’s attention.   Campaign for a significant bond issue in your city’s fiscal 2027 budget.   Plan to apply for state SH funds available through a SH pilot project initiative originally proposed by Rep Michael Connolly.   Demand that Governor Healy set aside unused state-owned lands for SH and not sell them off for bargain basement prices to private developers.

Please join us on Thursday, June 26th at 12 PM ET/9 AM PT to rally at the JFK federal building in Boston to hear from experts like Stephen Kinzer, Iranian Americans, and other anti-war voices and demand that our members of Congress forcefully advocate for a negotiated nuclear deal with Iran and oppose U.S. war with Iran.

This rally is part of a national campaign that aims to secure majority support in both chambers of Congress for the Iran nuclear deal.

From Haverhill to East Milton! Join An Overpass Visibility Action Near You!

Phone Bank to Save Medicaid!

Every Tuesday and Thursday between 10am and 2pm volunteers stand out at the Statehouse for 2-hour “shifts” either outside or inside depending on weather, and interact with visitors, legislators and Statehouse staff about the Climate Crisis. While there we keep up a daily stream of written messages on prepared cards that are signed and hand delivered to legislator’s offices.

The Klamath River Runs Free

For the first time in 100 years, after decades of struggle and pressure from native peoples and conservationists, four large dams have been removed from the mighty Klamath River.  Steelhead and salmon now run from the Pacific Ocean up toward the headwaters in Oregon’s high desert. A lifeline providing food and transit to indigenous populations before the dams were built, the river also holds enormous symbolic significance for native peoples including the Klamath, Shasta, Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Yurok.

      If you would like to work with ORMA Members on

• Climate Change
• Community-Based Alternative Emergency Response Teams
• Ranked-Choice Voting
• Housing For All       

ORMA depends on your support to continue Bernie’s Political Revolution to create a society, a politics, and an economy that works for everyone, not just billionaires, corporations and the political elite.

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