Material Aid and Advocacy Program

03/02/2026

We hope you will join us NEXT MONDAY March 9 from 4-5PM to learn how to respond to an overdose and talk about and strategies to keep ourselves and our community safe. We'll share an overview of harm reduction as a philosophy, movement, and practice - including safer use strategies and policies that save lives, examples of stigma-reducing language, the effects of opioids and naloxone on our bodies, how to identify and respond to an overdose, and considerations and safety planning around calling 911.

The registration link for this month's training and all 2026 trainings can be found following the included link along with links to toolkits to take action in support of overdose prevention centers and against Mayor Wu and her policing partners campaign of criminalization targeting unhoused community members and poor people who use drugs.

We hope to see you there, stay safe! 💛

https://www.maapma.org/overdoseresponsetraining

04/08/2024

Political complacency and criminalization continue to kill our people - community keeps us safe!

Join us TODAY Monday April 8 at 4PM to learn how to respond to an overdose and talk about and strategies to keep ourselves and our community safe. We'll share an overview of harm reduction as a philosophy, movement, and practice - including safer use strategies and policies that save lives, examples of stigma-reducing language, the effects of opioids and naloxone on our bodies, how to identify and respond to an overdose, and considerations and safety planning around calling 911. If you can't make it this month, we'll be taking a training break in May but will be holding another training on June 10th.

You can find the registration link here https://linktr.ee/maapmass, along with links to toolkits to take action in support of overdose prevention centers and against Mayor Wu and her policing partners campaign of criminalization - including an ongoing camping ban and a newly created regional lockup specifically for unhoused people who use drugs.

We hope to see you there, stay safe! 💜




https://linktr.ee/maapmass

03/19/2024

Checkout MAAP's March Community Update to learn about our community members' most urgent material needs, how you can take action to stop the sweeps, criminalization and caging of unhoused community members in Greater Boston, how to register for an upcoming training, and about our Tag Sale Fundraiser that is coming up on May 3 & 4th!

https://mailchi.mp/9e18e4a99df2/maap-march-community-update

12/31/2023

Help us start 2024 strong! We rely on individual contributions of all sizes to offer community care (material aid, drop-in community space, sweep support) and organize alongside unhoused community members and people who use drugs for transformative solutions to the inter-connected crises they are fighting to survive every day.

Our community is currently experiencing an unprecedented increase in coordinated criminalization at the hands of democratic mayors and their public and private policing partners - including a recent tent ban and a newly created shady and illegal regional lockup, increased preventable overdose death, and the cold is once again upon us. Our community needs us more than ever.

We hope you'll consider making a financial or material contribution to support our work this giving season if you're able. If you have already given, we so appreciate you. If giving isn't possible we hope you will share our work with your community.

To read our year end update and support, go to https://linktr.ee/maapmass to:
💗 Make a one-time contribution or sign up to become a sustainer
💗 Donate supplies from our wishlist (new or gently used)
💗 Donate supplies from our FSA wishlist

As always, we also encourage you to give unhoused people cash - they know what is best for themselves, their circumstances, and their needs.

11/01/2023

It's Day 3 of Mayor Wu's own . Thus far reps for the Wu admin have been coercing people into shelter that doesn't meet their needs - and in the same breath telling them to stay away from the area, back with family where they may not be safe and where remaining is not likely tenable, or into detox which is both not long-term and increases risk of overdose due to changes in tolerance. None of this is shocking. We know things will get worse starting today when Boston Police begin enforcing the ordinance on Atkinson Street and across .

Since the Boston City Council voted last week to approve Wu's camping ban we have been working with community members to strategize, and hold space for the grief and fear they are experiencing around being criminalized for being forced to survive poverty in public. We've also been working working with our legal partners at the ACLU and National Lawyers Guild, our friends at the MA Bail Fund, and members of our Stop the Sweeps! Stop the BID! organizing group to develop Know Your Rights and resource materials, and finalize our on the ground safety plans and strategy for support during these sweeps and those to come.

We have been here before and are committed to continuing to fight alongside our unhoused neighbors but need your support!

Take action! Call Mayor Wu and demand she:
- END her camping ban & that ban survival and cause significant harm - including death
- Remove the cops from what should be a public health plan
- Invest in evidence-based solutions to homelessness and evidence-based services and support for people who use drugs

Our action alert that includes more information, talking points, and a script can be found here on our linktree: https://linktr.ee/MAAPMASS You can also find links to contribute funds to support our work or material aid (in kind/gently used) for unhoused community members.

You can read more about how Mayor Wu's Camping Ban has impacted encampment residents this week in Tor Bedford's piece for WGBH, ‘They’re throwing us out’: Boston begins clearing encampment at Mass. and Cass https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-10-30/theyre-throwing-us-out-boston-begins-clearing-encampment-at-mass-and-cass

09/06/2023

📣 MAAP IS HIRING! 📣

MAAP is hiring a part-time Community Care Organizer to offer direct support to unhoused community members at our drop-in space. This person in this position will also offer other community care as needed; organize and support volunteers; and engage in organizing, advocacy, and community education.

🔑 RESPONSIBILITIES
💜 Assist in running our drop-in space on Tuesdays and Thursdays
💜 Meet unhoused community members’ material and survival needs, and connect people to resources responsive to their goals or needs
💜 Maintain a strong and safe community space through relationship-building and community agreements, and community member rights and responsibilities
💜 Respond to crisis, when necessary, and support community members in de-escalating themselves safety-planning around overdose, law enforcement interactions and engagement with the criminal legal system, and other crises
💜 Engage in sweep support and encampment / street outreach
💜Coordinate material & food donations
💜 Manage existing volunteers and oversee continuous development of a volunteer onboarding process
💜 Support facilitation of our regular community organizing meetings and opportunities to increase the collective organizing capacity of members
💜 Build out our existing movement campaigns and create actionable organizing campaigns based on
self-identified goals of members
💜 Expand our current community training offerings and build out training and workshops as needed for community partners

🔑 KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
The person in this role must be a flexible problem solver and effective communicator with many types of communicators who has the ability to support, work, organize alongside and be in community with our members who shape our space and our organizing and advocacy priorities.

They must have an understanding and commitment to harm reduction principles, practice, and movement; restorative justice and justice practices; abolition and trauma-informed and person-centered care.

🔑 INFO
Pay: $25/hr
Hours: 20-26/wk (Tuesday & Thursday are required; with a third work day decided in collaboration with the Executive Director)

Details & How to Apply: https://www.maapma.org/teamopportunities

07/17/2023

MAAP is celebrating 5 years as an independent organization! 🎉

Over the past five years the demand for our direct support and grassroots advocacy has increased drastically. The number of community members who come to MAAP for support at our drop-in has DOUBLED since the onset of COVID-19. Our growing community is experiencing a significant increase in criminalization and sweeps for simply surviving poverty in public, navigating an adulterated drug supply - which has resulted in significant increase in preventable overdose deaths among our members, and still - a dire lack of truly affordable and accessible housing. During this time, MAAP and our members have continued to organize and advocate along with our movement allies for their evidence-based co-created solutions to these systems created crises they fight to survive every day.

We hope you will and support us in continuing our and organizing work in Greater / area by donating today!

Click the link below to read more about our work over the past five years and make a contribution! Thank you and stay safe! 💜

https://mailchi.mp/b74d82c06ca9/high5maapjuly17

02/01/2023

🧊 URGENT MATERIAL SUPPORT NEEDED AHEAD OF SUB-ZERO TEMPS! 🧊
As you have likely heard, we are expecting SUB-ZERO temperatures in the Greater Boston / Cambridge Area and across the region this Friday & Saturday. Without housing and adequate safe indoor options unhoused community members are being put at preventable EXTREME risk for hypothermia and frostbite, even death. We are finalizing our plans for increased support for our community members who are largely surviving poverty on the streets and encampments through this time. At the same time we are collecting material aid to share ahead of and throughout the cold snap and gathering information and resources to support people in safety planning.

WE CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU!
Help us continue to support community members ahead of and throughout this extremely dangerous, potentially deadly, weekend by donating warm clothing and survival supplies by donating gently used or new warm clothing and survival supplies, or making a contribution.

Donate Gently Used Survival Supplies & Clothing
We need (in order of priority):
- Sleeping Bags (preferable zero degree), WARM Blankets & Comforters
- Winter Coats (preferably waterproof)
- Waterproof Winter Boots & Hiking Boots
- Cold Weather Clothing: Hoodies, Sweatshirts, Flannels, Sweaters, Jeans & Work Pants
- Base Layers: Long Underwear (like new), Leggings, Pajama & Athletic Pants & T-Shirts
- Body & Toe Warmers
- Backpacks, Camp Packs & Reusable Shopping Bags
- Tents (w/all pieces)
- Yoga Mats & Camp Pads
- Gift Cards: $10 to 7-11 & Dunks
- Individually Packaged Snacks

Any clothing or survival supplies you have to share can be dropped off at MAAP (5 Longfellow Park Cambridge):
- Wednesday February 1st until 8PM
- Thursday February 2nd 8AM-8PM
- Text/Call (617)876-5312 or knock when you get here
- Questions?: Email Cassie at [email protected]

Donate New Items from our Urgent Needs Wishlist
- Urgent Needs Wishlist on Amazon (via link below)
- They will be shipped to directly to us (though some items may not get here before this weekend, they are still useful) OR purchase them locally (some items note where they can be purchased more affordably than Amazon) and drop them off at MAAP.

Donate Funds to Support our Work
- You can make a one-time contribution or become a monthly sustainer via the link below to help us continue our mission of supporting and empowering unhoused and underhoused community members, through material aid, access to resources, organizing support and advocacy opportunities.

ALL OF THE ABOVE LINKS CAN BE FOUND ON OUR LINKTREE
https://linktr.ee/MAAPMASS

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUPPORTING OUR UNHOUSED NEIGHBORS! STAY SAFE! 💜

10/20/2021

“Unhoused people have been telling us for years that congregate shelters aren't safe,” said Cassie Hurd , the executive director of the Cambridge-based Material Aid and Advocacy Program. “And this past year and a half, COVID has reaffirmed that...We need to be pivoting away from warehousing people in shelters and towards what we know is the evidence-based and more compassionate and cost-effective means of addressing homelessness, which is housing.”

Last year, providers and the city limited capacity in shelters and offered more two- to four-person rooms to minimize exposure.

10/20/2021

The announcement sparked immediate criticism from advocates. Cassie Hurd , executive director of the Material Aid and Advocacy Program, said the order is more about getting rid of the encampment than improving the health of its inhabitants.

"Though it outright claims otherwise, the core of Mayor Janey's executive order is both criminalization and coercion of unhoused people and people who use drugs," Hurd said. "... It's the disappearing of unhoused people by any means necessary under the guise of public safety and public health."

Acting Mayor Kim Janey vowed to end encampments around the crime-ridden area near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, promising to find shelter for those staying in tents and to forcibly remove people unwilling to comply with the city's efforts.