Housing Justice

I'm fighting to bring the urgency our city government has too often been lacking to Cambridge's housing crisis. I volunteer as a tenant organizer and like 2/3 of Cambridge residents, I'm a renter. But tenants are significantly underrepresented on the City Council.

Our city planning processes are guided by a simple principle: planning and development in Cambridge should benefit our residents and communities—both longtime Cantabrigians and more recent arrivals. Our planning, zoning, and development processes must serve our communities—especially working and middle-class residents that have been traditionally underrepresented in city planning processes—and not just be windfalls for asset management companies, wealthy property owners, or corporate landlords and real-estate developers.

Together we're advancing a number of policies to address our housing crisis, including:

Tenant Protections:

• Creating Just Cause eviction requirements & Right to Counsel.
• Ending tenant-paid broker's fees to rent an apartment, which add thousands of dollars to the cost of finding a place to live in Cambridge.
• Establish Rent Control for the 21st century to stop displacement caused by huge year-to-year rent increases.
• Enacting a Condo Conversion ordinance with eviction protections, opportunity to purchase, and relocations assistance.
• Create a Tenant Right to Purchase & Real Estate Transfer Fee to curb speculation.

Working with homeowners on affordability:

• Provide assistance programs and financing models for aging homeowners who want to keep their housing affordable for future generations of Cantabrigians in partnership with housing non-profits.

Housing innovation and principles:

• Establish a Cambridge Community Land Trust to create permanently affordable housing for the community
• End red-lining era exclusionary zoning that prevents the creation of triple-deckers, duplexes, and other apartments in large parts of Cambridge
• Stop selling & leasing public land to private developers and instead invest in our public spaces
• Require corporate developers to negotiate Community Benefits Agreements with residents on large projects to ensure community input and investment in public transit, affordable housing, and green spaces
• Create an Office of Housing Stability to serve as a one-stop shop for housing assistance and make public the neighborhood-level eviction and displacement data the city currently isn't tracking to help us effectively target our policies.

A Green New Deal for Cambridge

While Congress is dragging its feet on passing the Green New Deal, sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, we can implement a Cambridge Green New Deal that is just as ambitious in tackling climate change and economic inequality at the local level. This Cambridge Green New Deal will include:

• Make public transit fare-free for Cambridge residents, starting with buses—following models developed by Boston, Lawrence, and other cities.
• Create bus-priority lanes to reduce commute times.
• Commit to the full Cambridge Bicycle Plan with 20+ miles of protected bike lanes, including on Mass Ave, Hampshire, and Mt Auburn Streets.
• Develop a public local micro-transit service for elderly & disabled residents and work with the MBTA to fix The Ride.
• Reverse the rapid decline of our tree canopy.
• Develop an improved stormwater management system through the implementation of green infrastructure to supplement or replace our aging gray infrastructure.
• Remediate and restore Jerry's Pond in North Cambridge
• Create a Cambridge Clean Energy Initiative to fund grants for energy efficiency projects, solar panel installation, local food production and green infrastructure

Economic Justice & Public Accountability

Like many cities, Cambridge is on the front lines of rapidly increasing economic inequality. Our community also still has much to do to address racial and gender equity gaps in our city. Let's invest in programs that will make Cambridge fairer for everyone:

Our movement is fighting for:

• A Cambridge Promise for tuition-free public higher education for all CRLS graduates, including college, trade school, and union apprenticeships, financed by increased PILOT contributions from Harvard & MIT.
• City-wide municipal broadband to provide an alternative to the virtual Comcast monopoly on internet-service in Cambridge.
• Universal Pre-Kindergarten at Cambridge Public Schools and expanded after-school and childcare options.

Additionally, we can make sure our government represents all of us by:

• Allowing Cambridge residents to directly elect their own Mayor and ending the strong-City Manager/weak Council form of government.
• Establishing publicly financed municipal elections and working to support efforts for public financing state-wide.
• Offering expanded, permanent early-voting in municipal elections to ensure everyone has their voice heard.