LYNN — The crucial part of developing his post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan is to “listen,” and U.S. Rep Joseph Kennedy III said that was the reason for his visit to Lynn Community Health Center Sunday.
This was the second day of Kennedy’s statewide Jobs and Justice Tour, and he started with a visit to the LCHC building on Union Street.
“Every time I go to a community health center, I am inspired,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said the tour has been a way to gain feedback for his Jobs and Justice Initiative. The plan is a coronavirus economic recovery blueprint. It proposes legislation that includes federal funding for municipalities in need of job growth and retainment following the COVID-19 pandemic that would allow local governments to keep teachers, public safety workers and others.
Kennedy said people in cities such as Lynn, which are multilingual and have communities of people facing historical disadvantages, have been “hit hard” economically by the COVID-19 shutdown.
“The Jobs and Justice Initiative focuses on communities like Lynn,” Kennedy said.
Workers at the center stressed to Kennedy that they have had a tremendous amount of help from community businesses and organizations during the pandemic — meals donated by nonprofits, personal protective equipment donated by barber shops.
Kennedy said LCHC has a focus on “multilingual services” that should be supported and encouraged as a way to care for the city’s more vulnerable populations.
A second phase of the plan calls for large-scale federal training and hiring programs to increase the number of Black people and people of color, as well as women, in underrepresented fields. Such programs would be done in partnership with local labor unions, schools, and community organizations.
Kennedy has outlined specific goals of the Jobs and Justice Initiative, including adding at least 100,000 jobs to the healthcare industry and getting a $15 minimum wage for workers in the job training and hiring during the second phase.
Kennedy said more infrastructure investment and safety nets for small businesses in cities like Lynn would help address the “deep structural challenges” that inhibit economic recovery following a pandemic.
Kennedy is challenging incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey in the Sept. 1 Democratic primary.
Following the visit in Lynn, Kennedy toured Salem restaurants with Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, visited Breaking Ground Coffee Shop in Peabody with Mayor Ted Bettencourt, and stopped at five other sites on the North Shore before ending the day in Everett.
According to CNN, Kennedy and Markey have raised almost the exact same amount of funds, about $4.8 million, for their campaigns. Latest polls favor Kennedy, including an Emerson College poll from June which had Kennedy leading by 16 points.
