After years assisting homeless residents through Councillor Zondervan's office, Dan's top priority is directing local tax dollars towards homelessness solutions. Despite our city's prosperity, there's reluctance to use local funds to help unhoused residents and address our public health emergency. The City Manager hasn't acted on the mayor's expert group recommendations, for example. Instead, the city is intensifying policing of unhoused people. Dan advocates for prioritizing resources in supportive housing and wraparound care over policing and incarceration to address this crisis. Dan will push to:

-Expand low threshold emergency shelter options to get unhoused residents off the street as quickly as possible

-Hire new wraparound case managers so that every unhoused resident can receive ongoing support through the Multiservice Center.

-Establish permanent supportive housing, a model where housing is attached to services and ongoing case management.

-Open a low threshold drop-in center, also known as a day shelter.

-Improve conditions at 240 Albany Street - the city’s wet shelter.

-Improve conditions at YMCA Central House SRO.

-Open an overdose prevention center (safe consumption site).

At city hall, Dan played a key role in drafting legislation to increase affordable housing in all neighborhoods and he also helped countless residents navigate eviction and instability. As a renter himself, he has experienced the affordability crisis firsthand. Dan supports bringing back rent control, establishing a municipal voucher program, and improving conditions for all Cambridge Housing Authority tenants. Renters make up 66% of the city's population yet there is only one renter currently on the council! Dan will advocate for limiting displacement and reducing the cost of living for low income people and all renters. Dan will push to:

-Create a municipal voucher program to expand on Section 8 and immediately increase the number of low income people who can afford to live in our city

-Protect the Affordable Housing Overlay which has made it easier to build affordable housing in every neighborhood of the city

-File a home rule petition to bring back rent control

-Restrict condo conversions and down-conversions to protect the rental housing stock

-Establish a universal right-to-counsel for tenants facing eviction from a Cambridge apartment

-Pass a student housing overlay to legalize denser student housing with an affordability component on university-owned land

-Increase enforcement of unregistered and non-compliant AirBnBs

-Eliminate the inclusionary housing threshold so that market rate projects of every size do their part to address our affordability crisis

-Push CDD to implement long-awaited updates to the Inclusionary Housing preference criteria

-Stand with tenants of all kinds and especially demand better treatment from the Cambridge Housing Authority.

I strongly support universal afterschool and see this policy as essential to addressing racial and economic injustice in our schools. Last year the city turned away 500 families who requested an afterschool slot, including almost 100 low income families. This is a huge burden for those families financially and otherwise. I see universal afterschool as a necessary companion to universal pre-school, which is at long last going to happen. We have the resources, let’s get it done!

I have signed the Cambridge Bicycle Safety pledge and they recognize me as a “strong ally”. For me, safety is the most important factor - I don’t want to come home to the news that one of my friends was hit! You can count on me to keep us moving forward on implementing the network of protected bike lanes.

As one of the only openly LGBTQ+ candidates in this race, Dan understands the challenges faced by the queer community in these times of heightened hostility. He was personally attacked with a homophobic slur at a 2021 meeting of the Cambridge Democrats, highlighting the work still needed even in our city. We rightfully celebrate being the first city to marry an LGBTQ+ couple, but we need to dig deeper and especially prioritize the needs of marginalized subgroups of the community. Dan will push to:

-Require the city to provide safer options for trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming residents living in the shelter system including doors that lock and a private bath/shower.

-Ensure that all shelter workers receive training on how to affirm and support queer community members. Strengthen existing complaint investigation processes at shelters to better protect residents who face discrimination.

-Construct affordable and intentional LGBTQ+ senior housing following national models such as Brooklyn’s Stonewall House.

-Confront the reality that 43% of gender nonconforming students at the high school have considered attempting suicide within the last 12 months. Begin real conversations about how to better support them!

-Audit every corner of our city government and develop strategies to better meet the unique needs of LGBTQ+ employees and residents.

-Reject city manager board and commission appointments who have demonstrated a pattern of bigotry and hatred toward LGBTQ+ people or other marginalized groups.

In 2023, we achieved a significant milestone by passing the Green New Deal for Cambridge, which introduced some of the country's toughest emissions reduction requirements. Large commercial buildings are now mandated to reach net-zero emissions by 2035, resulting in a 50% reduction in the city's overall emissions. This accomplishment followed years of dedicated organizing by hundreds of supporters who triumphed over the objections of powerful corporations and special interests. As Councillor Zondervan's aide, Dan played a pivotal role in researching, drafting, and advancing this initiative. Now we must continue to eradicate other sources of emissions and set a national example for getting to zero as quickly as possible. Dan would push for:

-Implementing the Green New Deal for Cambridge as planned without delay

-Eliminating emissions from residential buildings by working with stakeholders to address challenges and building out resources such as the custom retrofit program so that we can move forward.

-Eliminating emissions from transit by reducing overall reliance on individually owned cars.

-Eliminating emissions from solid waste disposal by creating a program to divert carpets from the trash.

I support raising wages for city workers, including raising the minimum wage to at least $25/hour. I don’t think the city’s Living Wage Ordinance has kept up with inflation and the city’s exorbitant cost of living. We need to do more to encourage careers in public service, including at various non-profits engaged in contracts for services with the city, and that starts by raising wages.

It is clear that the Port neighborhood (where I live) has been underinvested in for decades compared to other parts of the city. Buildings like the Moses Youth Center, Central Branch Library, and Windsor Street Health Clinic are in urgent need of attention. 105 Windsor Street has sat vacant for decades instead of serving a generation of low-income youth growing up across the street in Newtowne Court. The city would not step in and purchase the Margaret Fuller parking lot when the opportunity was available. The Squirrel Brand Community Garden is in need of repairs to address flooding issue, rebuild broken raised beds, and create an official place to store tools. Our neighborhood needs someone who will demand a stronger focus on The Port and Central Square.