Welcome to ELEVATE Boston!
Last week, a coalition of Boston-based organizations, activists, residents and community activists announced our vision for elevating Boston through our next Mayor. We submitted the questionnaire below to all mayoral candidates, and have been collecting their responses—this week, we’ll make those responses publicly available to voters.
Boston is a great city, made up of 22 distinct neighborhoods with residents of many cultures, ages, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, and religious beliefs. We envision a Boston where every person has the opportunity and resources to live healthy lives and thrive economically. We envision a Boston where all residents feel safe at home, in school, in our parks, and on the streets. We deserve a Mayor who will foster understanding across communities and who embraces the thinking that Boston will be at its best when every resident in every neighborhood is successful. We want to collaborate with the next Mayor to raise these issues as policy priorities and to ELEVATE Boston.
Read more about our vision and our questions for Boston’s next Mayor below, follow along on Facebook, submit your own questions and ideas to ELEVATE Boston, and stay tuned for candidates’ responses!
The ELEVATE Boston Questionnaire:
We have three areas of policy focus: health equity, economic equity, and safe communities for all. In order to ELEVATE Boston, these issues must be a policy priority for the next Mayor. These issues are germane to city government and areas that the Mayor of Boston has wide latitude to make a difference in.
Please describe for us your Vision to ELEVATE Boston.
We believe that all residents of Boston deserve access to culturally competent, medically accurate, and affordable health care and coverage regardless of their age, race, sexuality, and gender identity. We believe that our young residents deserve a strong education on healthy relationships, sexual identity, and sexual health. We believe it is part of the Mayor’s responsibility to work to eliminate areas of health disparities and equip community organizations and residents with resources so that they can identify medically accurate and community based health care in their own communities.
In your first 100 days, what will you do to ensure that all residents have every opportunity and resource to live a healthy life?
We believe that all residents of Boston deserve safe, healthy, and affordable housing, and a living wage with benefits including earned sick leave so that they can afford to take care of their loved ones. We believe that the Mayor should play a leadership role in ensuring equal pay for equal work. We believe that women entrepreneurs deserve every opportunity to start thriving careers and businesses, with access to job training programs, small business loans, and child care.
In your first 100 days, what steps will you take to make sure there are opportunities for every resident to thrive economically and to foster bustling cultural and business districts that provide access to Bostonians of all backgrounds and ages.
We believe that all residents of Boston should feel safe in their own homes and on our streets, free from sexual and domestic violence, exploitation, abuse and street harassment. We believe it is the Mayor’s responsibility to appropriately educate our police force, public school staff, and service agencies so that they can respond to acts of violence, exploitation, and abuse and employ best practices to prevent further acts of violence. We believe that all residents who experience violence deserve a safe place to go and that the city is responsible for helping victims of violence connect with health care, safe shelter and affordable housing options.
In your first 100 days, what will you do to address sexual and domestic violence, exploitation, abuse and street harassment and build safe communities for all?
