By Cameron Curtis | Photo by Jackson Chadwick
As I was walking through the Common on my way to the Beacon Hill Wu Team Meeting, I ran into a friend and explained that I was going to an event for Michelle Wu as research for an article, but I had no idea how to find where we were meeting, who would be there, or what we were going to do. I just hoped I could get something worth writing about in the paper (though what exactly that meant was another mystery I would have to solve on the fly).
The automated email I’d received from Wu’s campaign showed me a red pin at the intersection of Beacon and Charles. As I walked up, I looked around for a group of people on the sidewalk in purple shirts (the color the instructional email told me to wear) handing out informational pamphlets with Wu’s face on them.
Nothing. Just Bostonian pedestrians going wherever they go at 5:30pm on a Thursday with heads down, faces grim, and hands gripping dog leashes and cups of coffee.
When my quick survey came up empty, I thought maybe they were gathered in the Garden rather than the Common. As I crossed the street, I saw a group of four gathered on the median. One woman had a small purple pin on her sweater.
The red pin was more literal than I thought.
It was a small group; just Harper, the young woman who organized the event, an older woman who seemed to be an experienced canvasser, and a guy and a girl who looked to be in their twenties.
While the older woman talked to Harper about the app they use for canvassing, I turned to the other two people to ask why they came to this event. I found out later they were on a date of sorts. Politics, how romantic.
It turned out that, other than the date, we were there for somewhat similar reasons; they were both new to the city, had heard about the election, and, not knowing much about either candidate, had come to the event to learn about Wu and her policies.
The older woman left, saying she was planning to canvas another night. Harper turned to us and asked if we had any interest in canvassing. We all said no, which is an unfortunate answer for the organizer of a canvas to get. We ended up sitting on a bench in the Garden to talk about the top issues of the race and Wu’s policy proposals.
One of the distinctions between Annissa Essaibi George and Wu we discussed first was public safety. I had heard that Essaibi George was critical of Wu’s stance on police, specifically, the issue of defunding the police. Essaibi George believes public safety is closely tied to the continued authority of police officers and so, as mayor, she would not defund police departments. Wu sees public safety differently, Harper explained, partially because of her experience with her mother’s mental illness. There was a time when the police were called on her mother during a mental health crisis. Wu believes that connecting people in non-violent situations like her mother’s with counselors rather than police officers will reduce the likelihood of escalation of force. Providing those mental health services could mean reducing the budget allocated to the police force.
Harper also tells us Wu’s plans for addressing one of the top issues facing Bostonians: housing. There are more people who want to buy homes in Boston than there are homes to buy. Additionally, the property being put on the market is more expensive than most people can afford, a problem which only gets worse as home price appreciation continues to accelerate. Rent prices have increased even faster, which is bad news for a city where nearly 40% of households are renters. Essaibi George claims Wu supports “rent control.” Wu uses the term “rent stabilization.” The meaning is the same, though: setting a legal limit on the rent that landlords can charge. The argument for this type of regulation is that it would prevent rent from increasing indefinitely and enable people to rent housing they otherwise could not have afforded. According to a recent poll by The Boston Globe and Suffolk University (that’s us!), 60% of Bostonians support some form of rent control.
Some argue that rent control would de-incentivize the production of housing and lead to an overall increase in rent. Rent regulation is currently illegal in Massachusetts, so, even if elected, Wu could not instate this policy until it was legalized at the state level. As such, this is only part of Wu’s overall housing plan. Harper also mentioned the Wu campaign’s plan to do a full audit of all buildings in Boston that could be used for affordable housing.
Another related issue is public transportation. Part of her housing plan is to build affordable housing closer to stops along the MBTA in order to give easier access to the low-income tenants. Wu supports fare-free public transit, Harper explains, as an important part of her racial, economic, housing, and climate justice agendas. Since the MBTA is controlled by the state, this would take a partnership between the city and state government.
Many of Wu’s policy goals — from housing reform to public transit — go beyond the city of Boston and require partnership between local, state, and even federal agencies. Essaibi George has criticized them as “abstract” and “academic,” saying she will be a mayor who is not “on the soap box…[but] in the neighborhoods, doing the work.”
However, Boston’s voters don’t see Wu as distant. At a small Beacon Hill gathering in support of Ruthzee Louijeune’s campaign for at-large city councilor, a woman talked to me about her reasons for supporting Wu. One night, there was a gas leak in her building. She said that she made multiple phone calls and no one would come repair it until the following morning, which would have left the tenants of the building — including several elderly individuals and veterans — on the street.
Someone was sent to her building to stop the gas leak that night. Wu cares about everyone in this city, she tells me, no matter what neighborhood they are in.