Letter from the Executive Director for May 2018

Last month we explored a possible new service, dealt with more staffing work, and explored engagement around various policy options.

The next possible service we would develop might be the “helpline,” which we’re modeling after the California Apartment Association (CAA). They have successfully created a way for their “premium plus” members to access legal information (never advice) via email. CAA shared with us a demo of their software. It gave us plenty to think about. There are questions here about how best to serve our population, which might not email as often as theirs. We also need to figure out how best to implement a helpline, given our relatively short stack of resources.

April was a month of continued staffing work. We screened over 150 applicants for an “Information Manager” position. The role is to coordinate volunteer, staff, and vendor communications spread across our virtual office and, at time of writing, five time zones.

You may know that MassLandlords exists because of the dedicated effort of a team of outsourced professionals in Uganda, Estonia, the Philippines, and India, as well as in Pennsylvania, Utah, and of course Massachusetts. We are actually a difficult company to work for, in the sense that we require an uncommon level of technical sophistication and work-from-home self-sufficiency. The process we now use to hire is successfully identifying technical strengths, we hope to onboard this new role soon.

Our events are also a difficult job to staff, because they require travel, night work, and learning hundreds of names. We are grateful to our traveling registration desk staff person for helping us out while she could. We are now in need of a new team member.

Policy-wise, April saw our semi-annual policy forum and the new possibility of a ballot initiative. We are extremely appreciative to owners who drove from up to two hours away to engage with us on a Saturday. The result of this forum is discussed in-depth in this May edition.

By the time you read this, major decisions may have been made for us regarding rent escrow and Just Cause Eviction. Both of these will either be voted out of committee, killed, or extended on May 2. We will coordinate with the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and others to make the best of the opportunity we have. We will keep you posted.

In the meantime, please consider becoming a property rights supporter. We will need this revenue stream to mobilize against Just Cause Eviction Rent Control, Right of First Refusal, and many other issues.

Thank you for your support as we build the first professionally staffed trade association for landlords in Massachusetts.

Sincerely,
Douglas Quattrochi
Executive Director
MassLandlords, Inc.