Our platform

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Right to the City Boston has a vision of our city that includes strong working class neighborhoods and communities of color. We envision a Boston where there is equal access to quality education, affordable housing, economic opportunities, accessible transportation, a healthy environment, and public resources for all. 

 

We envision a Boston where we preserve the best aspects of the character of our neighborhoods. We envision a Boston where we celebrate the diverse backgrounds, languages, and cultures of our residents. We envision a Boston where young people have the resources to thrive, where working class families are stable, where immigrants are welcomed, and where community needs come before profit. We envision a city, state, and nation that invest in the public good. We envision a world where immigrants and Muslims have the right to remain.   

 

The Right to Remain in a Stable Community: To help families and individuals in Boston’s working class neighborhoods, we will strengthen the rights of tenants and homeowner occupants, make community planning decisions participatory and transparent, preserve and develop affordable housing, and increase the share of permanently affordable housing that is removed from the private real estate market. 

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• Tenant Option to Purchase - give tenants the legal right to purchase the home they rent when owners put it on the market, with the ability to partner with community nonprofit

• Right To Counsel - require a court to appoint the public defender to represent tenants in eviction proceedings

• Affordable Housing and Community Control of Land - ensure permanent affordability of current housing and prioritize community voice in land development processes

• Rent Stabilization - set policies to protect tenants from eviction by limiting the percentage of rent increases

• Real Estate Tax / Luxury Transfer Fee - fee for high value commercial/investor owned properties sold over $2M to fund affordable housing

• Stabilization Zones - establish protected zones and neighborhoods prone to displacement

 

The Right to Economic Justice and Good Jobs: Good jobs make strong communities. To exercise our right to wealth and good jobs in the City, we must address long-term unemployment and underemployment, substandard work, and structural inequities of the economic system by ensuring access to job opportunities, improved job standards, support for community small businesses and alternative economic enterprises. 

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• Fair Scheduling - provide workers 14 days advance notice of hours, right to request specific hours without retaliation, right to rest for 11 hours between shifts

• Enforce Hiring Goals in Construction/Permanent Jobs - ensure access to good and stable union jobs

• Fund Office for Wage Enforcement - provide AG’s office with additional support to enforce wage laws

• Wage Theft Campaign - enforce laws to hold accountable employers who rely on subcontracting and outsourcing deals to dodge responsibility for their workers

• Civilian Details - work to ensure a pathway for civilian details to avoid overtime police spending and employ locals

• Workforce development - working to make sure increased federal dollars can be used strategically to help our people get jobs

 

The Right to Democratic Participation: Our right to the city includes the right of every inhabitant to participate in decisions that shape our city—its budget, land, development, jobs, schools, services, and approach to public safety. It includes the right to information, transparency, popular participation, and equal representation and reform of the city charter to create mechanisms for accountability and balance legislative and executive powers. 

• Community led development - bring decision-making process on development back to the community level through reforming the BPDA and the local development process

• Representing prior to 2030 census - make our city council districts more equitable and representative of the communities in our City

• Expand Multilingual and disabled access to all City Departments - ensure all City agencies are accessible to community members regardless of language fluency and accessibility

• Fully Bilingual Ballots and Absentee Ballots - ensure full access to the voting process for limited- and non-English speakers

• Fully Funded Participatory Budgeting - utilize 1% of the city’s budget to ensure there is a robust, well funded participatory budgeting process

 

The Right to the Public Good: Our right to the city includes the right of every inhabitant to have equal access to public resources and services, quality education, public libraries, healthcare and other safety net programs in order to thrive regardless of background. 

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• Equity Initiative throughout all City Departments

• PILOT Funding - update the assessment of hospital and university property values, create a PILOT commission to develop a framework for PILOT income use and community benefits, work  toward full payment

• Data Equity - ensure that racial and ethnic data collection is representative of diverse communities

• Non-traditional Child Care Resources - ensure all families have affordable access to child care services

 

The Right to a Healthy Environment: Our right to the city includes the right of every resident to live, work, play and learn in an environment that supports our health, safety, quality of life. Communities that bear a bigger environmental burden should have meaningful opportunities to speak for ourselves and should be primary decision makers in issues affecting our lives, health, and neighborhoods. 

• Advocate for Equitable and Affordable Public Transit - ensure public transit is affordable and accessible to the community members who depend on it most, especially low-income riders

• Community Choice Energy Policy to Increase Use of Renewable Energy - prioritize equity for disproportionately impacted communities in climate mitigation, and advocate for a municipal commitment to power all publicly owned or operated facilities with 100% renewable energy 

• Prioritize Environmental Justice Communities – Increase benefits for the most impacted communities to programs that address energy efficiency, open space, traffic, and mitigation of climate change. 

• Ensure Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure  - Ensure requirements for large buildings to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions are met to reduce emissions gradually to net zero by 2050