Mass Senior Action uses grassroots community organizing to affect social change. We aim to create a more fair and just society by building power at the local level, creating long-term communities of informed and organized senior activists. This model seeks to empower individuals who know issues first hand because they live them, and its core goal is to challenge existing power relationships. Concretely, we try to figure out how to turn the resources we have into the power we need to achieve specific, measurable goals toward social justice. 

Many community organizations use direct service to address social problems. This is ultimately necessary because of the great need for affordable housing, healthcare, child care, food security, and so much more in our communities. However, direct service often accepts and preserves existing power relationships, therefore perpetuating the social structures and institutions that create poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression. 

As we educate and advocate for ourselves and take strategic action, we ground our learning in personal experience and a collective vision. We seek to share power and move toward creating the world we want to live in. We hold decision-makers accountable, whether that is a state legislator or a senior housing building manager. We inform seniors about their rights as tenants, as people with disabilities, as voters. We get in the street and raise our voices together. If necessary, we execute nonviolent direct action. It is by this model that Mass Senior Action has achieved so much over the past 34 years to improve the well-being of seniors in Massachusetts.