COVID-19 Emergency Requests

On behalf of the PDM leadership team, we hope that you and yours are safe and well, and are managing through these tumultuous and difficult times.

Like us, you’ve no doubt received a barrage of emails from groups with which you’re associated, and we don’t want to further overload your in-boxes and attention.  But we do hope you’ll take a minute to allow us to share a couple of requests:

First, PDM is working together with an array of allies, through Raise Up Mass and other coalitions, to identify ways that our government must act to protect our neighbors who are being most severely injured by the pandemic and the responses to it.  With Raise Up, we’re focusing especially on what the state needs to do to help those who are falling through the cracks in the new and pre-existing sick time and unemployment protections for people who are losing their regular sources of income. As federal and state programs and laws rapidly change, we’re working with our legislative allies to ensure everyone is protected, and we’ll be reaching out in future messages to ask you to seek legislative support for the emerging proposals.

In the meanwhile, we have joined with our allies in petitioning for two sets of urgent legislative priorities.  One petition, concerning expansion of state safety-net programs, is posted on our website here; the other, concerning protecting housing security, is linked here.   One immediate and urgent request is that you reach out to your legislators and ask them to commit to supporting the measures in these two petitions.

Second, even while we work to make sure our government does its part, some urgent, critical needs are going unfilled.  At times like these, those of us who are more secure financially need to dig as deep as we can to put vital resources in the hands of our threatened neighbors, and those of us who are able to do so need to volunteer our assistance to the maximum extent possible.

We know that there are numerous organizations that need financial support to provide vital services at this time.  But we would like to single out three that we believe are especially worthy of your immediate assistance:

• One group of people who will not benefit from virtually any of the government programs assisting people who have lost wages are the state’s hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers.  A program that is providing direct cash assistance to these people is the Mass UndocuFund.  Please help them with their work.
• Another group whose needs often cannot wait for government assistance to become available are low-income families with young children.  One group that is providing immediate assistance to some of these families is Smart from the Start, which needs urgent funding for its COVID response.
• Finally, in the western part of the state, many families who have lost income are in urgent need of emergency food assistance, pending the arrival of government assistance.  You can help support food banks in the western Mass. region by giving to the Food Bank of Western Mass.

We recognize that this is a selective list, but these are all trusted organizations that are providing vital, on-the-ground help right now.  If you have suggestions of other Mass. organizations providing these types of support, we encourage you to share them with us (at info@progressivedemsofmass.org) for future communications.

For now, please join us in reaching out to your legislators to urge their assistance, and please give as generously as you can to groups that are providing immediate help to those most in need.  And please stay safe and well.

Thanks for all that you do.

— Peter Enrich, for the PDM Leadership Team