Earlham Politicos: John Moran is leading efforts to help Bostonians recover from addiction

“So this whole question of jobs and how we live, and what kind of society we’re gonna have, who’s got a right to live and who doesn’t, who can eat and who can have a home and who can’t…  all those questions being thrown at us are real moral questions that we gotta deal with.” 

-General Gordon Baker

Everywhere you turn, news inundates us with talking points and sound bites about the fast-approaching U.S. presidential election. It gets hard sometimes to filter through all the noise and really get to the meat of what’s concerning this country and what we as Earlhamites can do to continue fostering good will and unity and peace.

Which is why we asked others for their thoughts.

In this ongoing series we’ll talk to a smattering of Earlham alums, staff, and current students, all impressively engaged politically at either the local or national level. You’ll hear from a gay Bostonian serving for the ninth Suffolk district working on a drug addiction recovery program; a sophomore politics major who’s working as the campaign manager for Indiana Senate candidate Susan Fortenberry and diving deep into local issues; current Earlham faculty and staff trying to rock and maximize the vote; a homesteader and representative of Maryland who’s working on parole reform and renewable energy and a strategist working for Earlham’s Center for Career Education looking to have healthcare for all and fight for the rights of the people with low-income.

First, let’s hear from Rep. John Moran of Boston, Massachusetts.

Rep. John Moran, Massachusetts state representative for the ninth Suffolk district, credits Quaker acts of service for leading him to his path in politics. The Clifford, Pennsylvania native didn’t even major in politics while studying at Earlham. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Japanese studies with a minor in economics, then went to work for the Japanese government as a coordinator of international relations for Japan’s Wakayama prefecture as part of the JET program. Moran also spent two summers working for the New York City Commission for the United Nations (UN) working on a baseball exchange program between Japan and the United States.

“After that I went to Tufts, thinking I was going to become a diplomat, but got really interested in business, partly because that was where my intellectual pursuits were at the time,” the 1989 Earlham graduate says.

After receiving a Master’s degree from Tufts University’s Fletcher School, Moran spent roughly 30-plus years working for a variety of companies including Gtech Holdings, Bose, Liberty Mutual, and Biogen. But even while working for business, Moran had a heart for politics and diplomacy, working on Robert Reisch’s governorship campaign, Pete for America, among others.

“The political side never went away,” he says. “I felt that was very important. I realized the skills I developed in business were just as applicable to politics, and after moving to Boston and living here with my partner and feeling welcomed, I felt compelled to run for office.”

Eventually, in 2021, he volunteered for Boston City Council member Tania Fernandes Anderson’s advisory council, and from there went to run for and win office for the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

“It’s interesting because you go to college and you go in planning to do one thing then come out doing something completely different because of the people you encounter and relationships made,” says Moran. “I would not be where I am today if it weren’t for Earlham. I heard the call of service, and it has to be because of what I picked up during my time there.”

As the incumbent for the ninth Suffolk district, the top three issues for Moran this political season are affordable housing, the ongoing opioid epidemic, and LGBTQIA+ and reproductive rights, which he believes to be synergistic. He prefers a multidisciplinary approach to key issues, particularly surrounding the opioid epidemic and how it manifests in his district and the area of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue.

“This area of town we call Mass. and Cass, it’s been an area of Suffolk District 9 for a number of years and is our center of opioid crisis. It’s largely an industrial area, and if you roll back to last winter there’s been a whole swath of people gathering there, living in tents, using illegal substances, trafficking people. The mayor’s office worked with the ACLU to disband that area and make sure they were placed in some type of supportive situation, whether that be recovery or housing. Things went well with that last winter but sadly the issue has returned, dispersed further into the residential neighborhoods. I’m on the more progressive end of balancing public health with public safety, but I’m working with various different entities so that we aren’t thinking and working in silos on this issue but working together.”

Now that the issue has returned, Moran is working on an initiative called Recover Boston, a program that looks to bring a more balanced approach to addiction by not solely focusing on safe drug use for Bostonians but incorporating recovery efforts into their rehabilitation. This may include finding housing for them, jobs, healthcare opportunities, in order to hopefully stop the cycle of drug abuse and address its root causes — a perfect segue into another key issue for Moran, affordable housing.

“The housing crisis is very acute in my district. It’s unique in that you have in some cases some of the wealthiest in the state and some of the poorest people in the state living in one case less than one mile apart. Going in one direction you have one of the most expensive hotels with residential units in North America, then in the opposite direction, you have some of the poorest people in Roxbury. The income disparity is overwhelming.”

This was part of his focus while working on Tonia Fernandes Anderson’s campaign, and moving forward, Moran has been focused on affordable ownership through the Commonwealth Builder Fund, amplifying the needs of some of the most vulnerable in Boston, including the IBA Villa Victoria, an organization founded for the Puerto Rican community. Moran has worked with them to transform some of their back offices into affordable housing spaces.

“We got the Affordable Housing Act signed by Governor Heely recently,” says Moran. “That has a number of things including retrofitting existing public housing, housing refurbishment, affordable ownership, other mechanisms to spur production such as accessory dwelling units like granny flats so that folks can age in place and have multigenerational housing.”

Moran is an active member of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus and considers both reproductive and LGBTQ+ issues additional top concerns, having recently worked on Massachusetts Parentage Act to allow LGBTQ+ families full parental rights and continuing to work to reinstate Roe v. Wade.

“We’re at the point where we need to do the work,” he says regarding people taking charge and turning out for canvassing and other political efforts.

Written by Jay Kibble, writer/editor for Earlham’s Marketing Office