CEO Corner: Your Voice Matters

When I think about what Hearth has accomplished this spring, one word keeps surfacing: voice.

The work we do is housing and stability: outreach, prevention, permanent supportive housing, assisted living. But the reason the work works is that we keep showing up as the voice for older adults who don’t have one, or whose voices stopped being heard somewhere along the way. May has made that clearer than ever.

In March, our team and our supporters walked in the Winter Walk. This month, we learned what those steps added up to: Hearth was the #1 fundraising partner across every Winter Walk in the country (Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Tallahassee). Not the biggest organization at the table, but 100%, the most determined one.

I am proud of every Hearth team member, donor, board member, volunteer, and resident who made that happen. And I want to say something directly to the rest of our team: this is your walk, too. Whether you participate, fundraise, or share a post, your voice multiplies ours. If you weren’t with us this year, I’d love to see you on the team in 2027.

As we swapped winter hats and hoped for a warm spring, we focused this month on Older Americans Month, and marking it the way Hearth marks most things: by showing up. On May 6th, Hearth participated in Older Adult Lobby Day at the Massachusetts State House, an annual advocacy event organized by Mass Aging Access.

In their words:

“Older Adult Lobby Day is about making sure older adults are not an afterthought in Massachusetts policy decisions. Home and community-based services help people age safely and with dignity in their own homes — where they want to be — while strengthening families and local communities. Showing up on May 6th sends a clear message: these services work, they matter, and Massachusetts must continue to invest in them.”

That is the message we carry every day. May just gave us a louder microphone.

With June right around the corner, we are hyper focused on this fact: Older adult homelessness rarely happens in isolation. Sometimes the unhoused individual we meet is also fleeing abuse, neglected, financially exploited, or unsafe in the place they thought was home. It is a part of the crisis we don’t talk about enough.

Next month, we will. June 15 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and we are proud to stand alongside our partners at Hebrew Senior Life, who operate CPEAN — the Center for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and Neglect, the first and only transitional shelter of its kind for older adults. They maintain a small number of shelter beds dedicated to those facing abuse, neglect, or exploitation, and we have been working with them to move clients into permanent housing. You, too, can be a voice for older adults in need. On Friday, June 15, Central Boston Elder Services will host a walk to raise awareness of elder abuse. For more information: 5th Annual World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Walk – Fill out form

Lastly, awareness and advocacy are not separate from our housing work. They are how the housing work scales. Every person we house is also a story we tell. Every event we show up to is a vote we cast on behalf of someone who can’t be at the table.

The thread running through all of it is consistent. Older adults need to know that someone will show up tomorrow, the day after that, and the month after that. That is what Hearth is built to do and in June, we’ll be inviting more of our community to mirror that consistency through our monthly giving family, the Kindling Club. More to come.

Thank you for using your voice with us.

— Rhonda A. Pieroni

President & CEO, Hearth