Help with utilities and landlines for survivors of domestic violence

If you get a restraining order (a 209A protective order), the court can order your former partner not to shut off your phone or other utilities. You must ask the judge to order this. Read more in 209A Restraining Orders.

You are not responsible for paying past bills that were not in your name. But you will probably have to start the service in your own name once your former partner moves out. Putting bills in your own name will make it easier to stop your utilities from getting shut off.

You may be able to stop a shut off if:

• you are low-income (below 60% of the state median income – about  $79,470 for a family of 3 in 2024-2025),
• you cannot pay your bills and:
  • you have a seriously ill person in your home. "Serious illness" can include any kind of physical or mental illness that a doctor certifies as serious, such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, or
  • you have a baby under 1 year old living in your house, or
  • all adults in the household are age 65 or older, or
  • it is between November 15 and March 15 and you need the utility for heat.

See Stop Your Heat and Electricity from Getting Shut Off.

You should be able to get local landline phone service turned back on, or keep it from being cut off, if you can’t pay your bill and 1 of the following applies to you:

• you have a personal emergency, or
• there is a seriously ill person living in your house.

The personal emergency protection stops the company from shutting off your landline phone service for 30 days.

Domestic violence counts as a personal emergency. You may need to call police, doctors, friends, family, or social service agencies for safety reasons.

Write a letter to the phone company explaining the emergency, and then fax or mail it to the company.

• Call your phone company and tell them you are sending the letter.
• The worker on the phone may not know about the personal emergency rule. You may need to talk to a supervisor.
• Say that there is an order issued by the Department of Telecommunications and Cable called DPU #18448. It says you have the right to keep your phone on for 30 days in the case of a personal emergency.

Read more of DPU #18488 in Appendix E of the National Consumer Law Center's publication Utilities Advocacy for Low Income Households in Massachusetts.

If you have a seriously ill person at home, you can keep your landline phone on without paying the bill for up to90 days if you also show that you can't afford to pay the bills. You must send in a new doctor's letter every 30 days. You also must need phone service due to the illness. This will almost always be the case since you probably need to reach doctors and others.

Call the Department of Telecommunications and Cable’s Consumer Division if the company will not leave your service on, or turn it back on. Their phone line is staffed by people who will help you deal with the telephone company.

Call (800) 392-6066 (toll free, and the better number to get consumer help) or (617) 305-3580. You can also fax the Consumer Division at (617) 988-8288 or email them at [email protected].  

You can also contact your local legal services office for help.

In most areas, you can keep 911 service even if you owe money on your phone bill. Your phone line will only work for calling 911. Ask the phone company if this is true for you.

There may be a free cell phone for emergency use. Call the SafeLink hotline for details about this program.