LYNN — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) visited the Lynn Vocational Technical Institute vaccination clinic Monday afternoon to discuss the ongoing efforts to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine locally and across the country.
“I’m here to celebrate successes,” said Warren. “I’ve seen people come together from the community health center, from the city, from the National Guard, to make a vaccination site that works.”
Warren spoke with Mayor Thomas M. McGee, state Sen. Brendan Crighton (D-Lynn), and state Reps. Peter Capano and Daniel Cahill (D-Lynn), along with Lynn Community Health Center CEO Dr. Kiame Mahaniah and his staff, who have led vaccination efforts in the city.
“I’m really excited to have the senator here today to see the dollars they made available making this happen here,” said McGee. “This really is an amazing operation. I think it’s as good of an operation in the state. I’m really proud of the amount of vaccinations we’ve been able to do. And the team is really making this happen.”
Lynn Community Health Center was recently awarded a $6.85 million grant from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan legislation, which will be used in its COVID-19 vaccine distribution efforts.
The American Rescue Plan, which was proposed by President Joe Biden and was signed into law on March 11, provided nearly $10 billion to expand vaccine access and education in communities of color, rural areas, municipalities with low-income populations, and other underserved communities in terms of COVID-19 response.
Warren’s conversation touched on equity in vaccine distribution, which has been a major goal for the Lynn Community Health Center. Of the minority patients eligible for the vaccine, LCHC Chief Operating Officer Kim Eng said a similar or greater percentage of those patients had received at least one dose.
That is an improvement on numbers at the state level, which show a large disparity in vaccination rates between minorities and Caucasians, which Eng said had been achieved through ongoing community outreach efforts.
Warren visited with LCHC staff at Lynn Tech and was given a used vial that once contained a vaccine as a souvenir.
Following the clinic, Warren visited Lynn Housing Authority & Neighborhood Development (LHAND) for a roundtable discussion on housing.
Upon listening to LHAND staff members discuss the work they had been doing in the community, Warren laid out her plans to support housing production in the state.
Warren said she has two plans that are currently in the works, one that was on the production-supply side and another that involved repairing and upgrading “all (of) the public housing units that are already out there.”
She stressed the importance of the federal government working with local partners on housing development.
“That’s a big part of what we’re working on here is trying to build on the work that you’re doing here,” she said.
Warren said an important step toward getting those plans through Congress was the potential removal of the filibuster, which allows the minority party to hold up legislation.
“We can’t let Mitch McConnell veto all the things we need to get done,” she said. “We need help on housing and health care. The majority should be able to determine that. That’s what the founders put into the Constitution and that’s what we should follow.”
