Letter from the Executive Director for November 2024: Writing Grant Proposals

This edition will be light for original newsletter content because in October we redirected our staff writers to grant writing. In general, October was full of activity including more work toward monthly dues and new training videos.

At time of writing, we intend to apply for two grants. The first of these would make MassLandlords a Mass Save “community first partner” for Fall River and New Bedford. The new, three-year Mass Save plan has a host of expanded benefits for a set of “designated equity communities,” of which New Bedford and Fall River are two. The new benefits include 100% of the cost of weatherization, barrier removal and heat pumps. If we are awarded the grant, we would help a large number of renters and landlords, who might otherwise not participate, to upgrade their homes and reduce emissions. We have drafted an extensive grant proposal for local outreach.

The second grant is to move one or two parcels of unbuildable land from the rental real estate tax roll and into permanent conservation trust. We’ve seen it happen: we buy land hoping to develop it, but we can’t get the permit, and it becomes a monkey on our back. The Department of Conservation and Recreation is funding opportunities to increase engagement with conservation initiatives in environmental justice communities. We have identified two donors interested in gifting us land and have drafted a proposal to reforest and use the land to educate. If you are interested in learning more about donating unbuildable land, email us at hello@masslandlords.net.

Besides this grant work, we have continued to implement monthly dues in our software development environment. The back-end database is more or less complete. We are nearly finished with the first draft of the front-end signup flow. We have been talking about monthly dues for a long time. It’s rewarding to know that we can pursue long, difficult projects and overcome many technical barriers. We don’t have a timeline for release (probably this winter). Existing memberships will not be changed, except for annual members with monthly property rights contributions. In this case, we plan to convert that membership to monthly for no additional cost.

We have now launched three video series in lieu of zoom virtual meetings (section 8, eviction sealing and deleading). Overall participation has been higher than we used to achieve with live zooms. This makes sense: you can now watch videos on demand. We intend to continue video production, and supplement our video series with live zooms and networking events, to ask questions and meet people.

The RentHelper service continues to go well and was written about in Boston.com as a place landlords can offer credit reporting to renters.

Thank you for supporting our mission to create better rental housing. We've got your back only because you've got ours. Please join as a member, encourage others to join, become a property rights supporter or increase your level of support. We aim to hire both a full-time educator and policy advocate.

Sincerely,

Douglas Quattrochi

Executive Director

MassLandlords, Inc.