BOSTON — The demand for lower housing costs and wage increases continues with hundreds of participants flooding the Boston Common, making their voices heard on Wednesday afternoon.
Lynn United for Change Director Isaac Simon Hodes said the grassroots organization coordinated a bus to pick up 45 Lynn residents to head down to Boston, demanding legislators to “raise our wage, cap our rent.”
Those marching were asking for the state’s minimum wage to increase to $20-per-hour and for legislators to lift the ban on local rent stabilization measures.
Protesters gathered at the Embrace Monument in the common and then proceeded to march to the State House. On the steps across from the house, low-wage renters spoke of their experience regarding the “Massachusetts affordability crisis.”
Lynn resident and tenant, Ana Molina, is facing a rent increase of over $750 per-month, following the purchase of her building by a Boston-based corporate landlord earlier this year.
Molina spoke, in Spanish, at the rally and was accompanied by Celly De La Cruz, English translator, and Lynn United For Change Community Organizer.
“I work 12 hours a day and some days I work more. This is almost 66 hours a week. I am a single mother of two teenagers and I barely have time to see them,” Molina said.
She said she works as a clerk at a local dry cleaner’s and has lived in her building for three years. In March, she received a letter from the new landlords informing her of the rent increase.
“The first thing I felt was a very great helplessness followed by depression. My first thought was to leave and abandon everything I have been building for my family over the years,” Molina said. “I can’t look for a second job because I already work 12 hours a day. So, for now, I’ve continued paying my old rent instead of accepting a huge increase that I can’t afford.”
Molina said she’s concerned what will happen if she’s forced to leave her home, and have to move to a different community.
“We do not live in peace. Fear turns into panic every time I think that the landlord is going to kick me out of my house because I cannot pay the rent increase. I would have nowhere to go with my children,” Molina said.
The 45 Lynn citizens met with State Representative Daniel Cahill and State Senator Brendan Crighton before the rally, asking them to endorse, “An act enabling cities and towns to stabilize rents and protect tenants,” according to a press release provided by Hodes.
The bill would allow cities and towns the option of enacting local rent stabilization measures to cap rent increases at a maximum of 5%, with an exemption for small scale landlords and a 5-year exemption for newly constructed buildings.
The release said the elected officials have not yet signed on to co-sponsor the bill.
“Every day we’re hearing from more Lynn tenants with enormous rent increases. When these corporate landlords suddenly push tenants out of their homes, and out of a city where they might have lived for practically their whole lives, it truly rips lives apart. Something has to be done to stop this, and the only thing that will make a difference quickly is rent stabilization,” De La Cruz said to the Item.
The press release read that since 2010, landlords have raised rent by 55% on average for a two-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts, making the state the fifth most expensive in the nation.
The rally and march was organized by 1199/SEIU, Homes For All Massachusetts, SEIU Local 509, and SEIU Massachusetts State Council, and was endorsed by dozens of organizations including Lynn United for Change.
