Grant Partners

Lawyers for Civil Rights will meet with individuals and families to help determine their health needs and connect them with resources and services that meet those needs. Its population of focus will be immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in communities across the Commonwealth. It will also coordinate closely with other community-based organizations and local and state agencies to ensure that its services are additive and not duplicative. 

MLCHC submitted this proposal on behalf of the Health Equity Compact. The Health Equity Compact is a group of Black and Latinx healthcare leaders with lived experience who seek to dismantle systemic barriers to equitable health outcomes by transforming care delivery and influencing health policy.

The Health Equity Compact will conduct 20-24 stakeholder interviews with leaders from state and municipal agencies, health care provider organizations, health insurers, employers, unions, and advocacy groups. These interviews will support the Compact to better understand these different stakeholders' current health equity-related interests and priorities, work, and desires for change at the state level. The interviews will also assess the reactions of these stakeholders to the policy proposals currently being formulated by the Compact. The Compact will then develop a report on stakeholder perspectives on the health equity policy proposals identified by the Health Equity Compact.

Family Health Center of Worcester (FHCW) is a full-service health center that assists patients and clients with insurance applications and renewals, provides education on how to use and keep coverage, and works with agencies that serve people with low-income, individuals without insurance, as well as immigrants and refugees. Worcester continues to be a community with pockets of high rates of uninsurance compared to other parts of the state. FHCW will provide application and renewal assistance with a focus on those who may fall on and off coverage, as well as conduct community-based outreach focused on those who may be food insecure, refugees or immigrants, and other area events.

Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee’s (CEOC) mission is to empower people and mobilize resources to fight the impact and causes of poverty through education and organizing. CEOC envisions an inclusive and diverse Cambridge without poverty, where everyone has affordable housing, quality health care, education, food security, and economic stability. CEOC will provide the Journey to the Hope program (the organization’s PM+ intervention program); increase staff members' knowledge, comfort, and confidence in discussing mental health and delivering Journey to Hope to community members.

Funding to launch the Chop and Connect program – a weekly meal and event for the elderly African immigrant community in Boston to reduce the impact of social isolation.

Funding to support the translation and interpretation of patient self-referral portal into various foreign languages with the purpose of being more inclusive of the many cultural and linguistic groups that make up their patient community. 

Agencia ALPHA will meet with individuals and families to help determine their health needs and connect them with resources and services that meet those needs. Its population of focus will be immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in communities across the Commonwealth. It will also coordinate closely with other community-based organizations and local and state agencies to ensure that its services are additive and not duplicative. 

Health Law Advocates (HLA) advocates for public policy reforms that help consumers access necessary health care and provides legal expertise with grassroots organizing and policy reform to advance healthcare access.  HLA will advocate to reduce barriers preventing immigrants from accessing health care. It will focus on improving health insurance coverage for immigrants and reducing the medical debt incurred by immigrants. HLA will help immigrants access health care through three interrelated activities: policy advocacy, legal assistance for immigrants, and training programs for providers. Additionally, HLA will continue its longstanding advocacy for better access to mental health care for youth. HLA lawyers will advocate with policymakers across our health care, human services, education, and judicial systems to remove barriers to mental health care for children. 

Boston Health Care for the Homeless (BHCHP) is one of the leading health care organizations providing health care to homeless individuals and families in the greater Boston area. People experiencing homelessness (PEH) are among the most vulnerable and unwell members of our community, which has been underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic. BHCHP’s sophisticated knowledge of homelessness and the health care system allows them to assist clients with enrollment, retention, and navigation of publicly subsidized health insurance programs. During the grant year, BHCP will expand access to enrollment and retention assistance for patients by embedding services on-site at various locations and integrated to new services like BHCHP’s expanded dental clinic and BHCHP’s family clinic within Horizons for Homeless Children, which serves families from various neighborhoods and shelters.

Transhealth Northampton (TN) will develop a pilot program to examine the effectiveness of a consulting model for gender-affirming care. This program will expand access by educating and supporting providers.  Under this model, the provider can reach out to Transhealth for a provider-to-provider consultation to ask specific questions about patient care.  In addition to individual consultations, Transhealth will create training and educational toolkits to expand the project’s reach and reach out to local primary care offices, medical groups, community health centers, and other local organizations to educate them about the program and invite them to participate.

Funding to provide resources to service members, veterans and their families to assist in purchasing food and groceries.

Funding for a new “Food Security for the City of Worcester” website. The website will centralize city food resources – including information about food pantries, farmers markets, summer school meal locations, SNAP information, and more.

Funding for six leadership staff, peers and volunteers to attend the International Harm Reduction Coalition to enhance their skills and training.

This grant funded outreach to individuals who have experienced gaps in insurance coverage due to barriers identified through our policy and research work.  This outreach supported the inclusion of a qualitative component to a policy and research project, elevating the lived experience of members of our community in our work.

Mass Senior Action Council (MSAC) is a member-led organization and is the only organization in Massachusetts that informs, engages, and empowers low-income seniors from diverse communities to have direct input in shaping the Commonwealth's health policy decisions. MSAC will advocate to expand access to affordable healthcare for lower-income Medicare beneficiaries by: raising state income eligibility of the Medicare Savings Programs from 165% to 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL); and updating the MassHealth asset limit to exclude life insurance policies. In addition, it will continue to meet with a range of stakeholders to better understand the oversight of Long-Term Care and to identify opportunities for increased protections for residents of nursing facilities. MSAC will also continue to advocate for a fully integrated intake and eligibility process for state health, food, and other means-tested benefits. MSAC is also continuing its efforts to have all 6 Senior Care Options programs include Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other benefit enrollment during their intake and re-certification processes.