Housing Campaign In Lynn

In the face of a critical housing shortage, ECCO is working to create affordable housing in Lynn.

Working with our partners at Neighbor to Neighbor and Lynn United for Change, ECCO put out an ambitious and prophetic proposal that advocated for the city to spend $29 million of its ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds on affordable housing. We advocated not only that the city invest in affordable housing, but also that community groups should have a say in how housing is created, distributed, and managed. Unfortunately, when Lynn's mayor Jared Nicholson's distributed the first round of ARPA funds, he only spent $5 million on affordable housing exclusively controlled by the city, and spent $18 million on parks.

The mayor and city council came to their decision to prioritize parks based on only 1700 survey responses, which they say didn’t reflect a preference for housing - but they actually did not include an option for housing on the survey. If we want Mayor Nicholson and City Council to spend its second round of ARPA funding on affordable and equitable housing, we need to make our voices heard!

Take action now!

Now, we need YOU to sign our petition letting Mayor Nicholson know that we want ARPA funds to go to affordable housing, guided by people.

To learn more about ECCO’s overall campaign for affordable housing, including why we took on this issue and important history around the legacy of racism in local and national housing policy, click here for our housing campaign landing page.