140 Signatures So Far to Move Money from the Police to the Community!
When you sign the petition below, it will generate an email to Mayor Wu, the City Council, and City staff. It will begin with your personal messages below, then include the main petition text. (Read the text, or click to start filling out your info.)
[Personal Messages]
We are living in a time where the people are restricted by a system that has refused many times to offer real sustainable support. Over the past 3 years YJPU and other community members have fought for investment into affordable housing, mental, youth jobs, and participatory budgeting. The Mayor and City Council have given us little to nothing while continuing to bloat the police budget, which has gone up 79 million dollars from 2002. Now Mayor Wu is proposing to increase the police budget to 477 million dollars.
Mayor Wu is also cutting the housing budget by $3.5 million including cutting funds for rental subsidies and eviction attorneys for BPS students, and slashing youth jobs spending from $26.8 million last year to a budget of $21.1 million (a cut of $5.7 million). Even with last year’s budget, dozens of groups had their school-year jobs cut by an average of 50%. In addition, despite having an enormous budget, the police use youth jobs money that we won in order to run 250 school-year jobs and 100 summer jobs.
Last year the Mayor and City Council decided to pass multiple new police contracts and a budget without real community input or a fair community involved process. This resulted in a huge police budget increase from 405 million dollars to 474 million dollars. During the budget vote City Council originally voted to amend the budget, cut the police, and add money to the community, but many Council members decided to change their mind when it was time to override the Mayor's veto. They added money to budget lines which have continuously been overfunded like equipment, contracts, supplies, and personnel, letting down the community in favor of the police. We remember each City Councilor who didn’t vote with us and made it difficult to vote for youth jobs and affordable housing.
We believe that real change and real safety comes from reinvesting police funds into things the community needs. The police attacked students peacefully protesting for Palestine. They arrest people who are unhoused or need treatment, and they harass and arrest Black and Brown people at alarming rates. The Mayor and City Council have continuously prioritized the police, funding them at a disproportionate amount to our community.
We are demanding cuts from the police department budget including personnel cuts, freezing new hiring of police, and cutting overtime. The City must cut police line items for equipment and contracted services, stop paying the Sheriff’s department to lock people up through central booking at Nashua St Jail, and stop allowing police to use youth jobs money.
Instead, money must be reinvested into truly affordable housing, including funding $7 million for the Acquisition and Opportunity Program to buy existing housing and make it permanently affordable, and adding $4.5 million to the Mayor’s budget for low-income rent subsidies. The City must increase funding from 6000 summer jobs and 2000-2500 school-year jobs to 10,500 summer jobs and 5000 school-year jobs; doubling the youth jobs budget to $43 million would start to increase youth jobs funding but the City must fund much more. Youth need a pilot of year round youth jobs with increased wages, as well as outreach workers to help more young people apply for jobs and get them. The City must fund 1% of the operating budget ($48 million) for participatory budgeting. Finally, the City must fund $4 million for a Boston People’s Response pilot for community-led mental health crisis response pilot.
Mayor Wu, City Council, we are watching you 👀
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