A worsening economy means Cambridge will demand more from its haves and can’t keep uplifting some of its have-nots, staff said Monday as a call to keep alive a homeless shelter, basic-income program and housing vouchers was trimmed to just the voucher programs.
That the debate happened at all was something of a surprise to city manager Yi-An Huang – “My understanding was that we had finished that conversation last Monday,” Huang said of the shelter, while he expected to begin talking again about guaranteed income in December.
Yet still the conversation isn’t done.
What’s at stake is which programs the city will pay for with its own money as the federal government takes money away. Staff has presented $5 million as a feasible amount even as it is “monitoring a possible shift in tax burden” to homeowners, in the words of a Tuesday memo prepared for the week’s budget hearings; for decades residential property owners they have been spared by a robust commercial sector paying 66 percent of the property tax levy.
After a policy order Monday led by councillor Ayesha Wilson called for including all four programs, a substitute order led by mayor E. Denise Simmons cut it to two. When Simmons’ substitute was approved 5-4 to replace the original, Wilson used her “charter right” to stop action before the substitute was enacted.
It’s unclear what Wilson intends to do with the week before the next council meeting. Voice mails left Tuesday did not get immediate replies.
The programs funded in each version are emergency housing vouchers for permanent supportive housing, which help 130 formerly unhoused Cambridge residents under a program “being dismantled by the Trump administration,” according to Wilson’s order, and housing vouchers for mixed-status households, which helps 42 families affected by changing federal policy: The “mixed status” refers to public housing or rent-help families in which at least one member is undocumented, but at least one is legally present in the country.
Simmons described the 172 individuals and families as “those who face the real and imminent threat [that] if we don’t act decisively and realistically, these people will be forced back into homelessness.”
To not act, she said, “would be a moral failure.”
Fighting until a budget passes
The guaranteed-income program, Rise Up, ended in February as federal Covid-aid money expired as expected after 18 months of giving lower-income Cambridge families $500 a month; the Transition Wellness Center began during the Covid pandemic and was always seen by the city as temporary. Simmons praised the programs but said “in this moment, we simply do not have the resources to keep everything going.”
Supporters of the original order – vice mayor Marc McGovern and councillors Sumbul Siddiqui and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler – argued alongside Wilson for various reasons that Rise Up and the shelter should stay in conversation. “I just want to emphasize this is a draft budget. The budget is not final until we vote it, and we haven’t done it yet,” McGovern said, suggesting that the programs be funded with $7 million from the city’s so-called free cash to provide time for a more extensive discussion. “We spend down that fund for a lot of things, and if we can’t spend it down just a little bit more to preserve programs that are literally putting a roof over somebody’s head and food on somebody’s table, then I’m not sure what good those emergency funds really are for.”
He voted a week earlier to accept a report from the city manager saying more shelter funding wasn’t available, he said, but he did not accept the answer.
Wilson too rejected some of the manager’s response as “semantics.”
“These are unprecedented times,” Wilson said, suggesting it is also time “to look at increasing some property taxes. We need to exhaust some options.”
Some welcomed an increase
Along with criticisms that the budgeting forced vulnerable populations to fight for resources, several speakers during the meeting’s public comment period said they would be okay with paying more in property taxes if it meant supporting programs such as Rise Up and the shelter.
Some councillors said not all residents might feel the same way – or not for long.
“Another $100 doesn’t seem like much in taxes, and maybe it wouldn’t be, but let’s remember that’s on top of a couple $1,000 of increase in taxes that folks across the city have seen in the last few years, and so for some that is a big deal,” councillor Patty Nolan said. “And remember, property taxes going up affects renters.”
Even as city staff holds budget increases to minimums – there’s a cap of 4 percent for the coming fiscal year and less than 5 percent seen through fiscal year 2029 – the tax bill increases are going to keep coming, councillor Paul Toner warned. Even with the 4 percent cap, “we’re looking at an 8 percent increase in the residential property tax,” he said.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
This are so many unnecessary expenses in the budget. Fat! We need an ombudsman to get rid if it, not like Musk, but with careful consideration.
I feel for the people who need money from the city to live in Cambridge. But, I also would like to see every child who needs after school care receive it, and not have to go through a lottery.
And cut out the boondoggle trips that the counselors go on to meetings that have little or no meaning to Cambridge. Remember that trip to Denmark (I think it was Denmark) for a “climate meeting” by the counselor and her staff.
Cut out the fat from the budget and perhaps the increases in homeowners’ real estate taxes will be less than what is planned. If the city keeps raising the taxes, as much as the economic middle class has been forced out of the city, it is going to get much worse and there will be no middle class left.
Compare with https://www.cambridgeday.com/2025/04/04/police-get-their-570000-in-weaponry-upgrades-including-holsters-that-start-body-cameras-rolling/
It’s good to know that some members of the council support spending money on upgrading deadly weapons for the police but draw the line at finding ways to keep helping vulnerable residents.
I obviously understand that the amount of money is different, but it seems to me to show a misalignment of some councillors’ priorities and focus with what I as a voting resident want from my city government – and I’ll remember that when voting this fall.
I’d support raising taxes, but we do need to keep in mind Councillor Nolan’s point that increasing taxes also increases rents. If Cambridge budgeted growth at 2.5%, like almost every other municipality in MA and consistent with inflation expectations, instead of 4%, the amount saved would be more than enough to pay for all of these programs via the City Manager’s Federal Stability Fund.
Frankly, in light of the federal uncertainty and already proposed cuts, there’s an argument for budgeting for lower growth and a significantly larger Stability Fund.