One of the first things an incoming governor or mayor does is form a transition team as they often make recommendations for new policy and legislation. Rather than disbanding after the transition, the team could itself become a committee acting as a think tank. These committees could provide additional capacity to city and state agencies.
Governor Maura Healey has created a Governor’s Advisory Council on Black Empowerment. I participated in one of their listening sessions. Unlike other public hearings, I could not find a way to submit written testimony. Why don’t we have standing committees where the citizens of the Commonwealth can submit ideas like a digital suggestion box? Corporations have gotten great ideas from both their employees and their customers. Why not the Commonwealth?
As it relates to Black Empowerment, these are 10 areas special committees should address:
- Reducing the life expectancy disparity. Boston has some of the world’s best academic medical centers, yet whites in Back Bay can expect to live almost 23 years longer than Blacks in Roxbury. Given our local expertise, the billions of dollars generated from the Affordable Care Act, and the ability of health care institutions to raise money from donors, Boston should be able to reduce all health care disparities, especially those relating to life expectancy, over the next 25 years. Drawing on leadership from our local hospitals, health centers and insurance companies, we need a commission dedicated to reducing the life expectancy and other disparities.
2. Increasing diversity in climate, environmental and energy technology. The state is rightly investing in wind and other clean energy technologies. We need a plan to ensure that this new multibillion-dollar industry makes diversity a priority in hiring, procurement and equity ownership. The plan should explore using federal funds to make Roxbury Community College a hub for technical assistance. The plan should include workforce development to make sure we have the necessary pipeline of diverse workers.
Massachusetts is providing grants to private businesses to spur the industry. These should include grants to help Black-owned businesses get in on the ground floor. A committee should explore applying the Massport model to clean energy technology development. If we don’t insist on equity ownership now, it is doubtful we will achieve it later.
3. Leveraging the state’s rapidly expanding biotech and life science opportunities, such as two new developments planned for Roxbury: Nubian Square Ascends and My City at Peace, both of which will offer significant space for labs and life sciences companies. We must ensure that the educational institutions along the Roxbury corridor — including Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, Roxbury Community College, the Dearborn STEM Academy, and the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology — partner with the businesses occupying these spaces to prepare students for work in biotech, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing specialties such as biomanufacturing. We need a plan to make the most of these opportunities for high school graduates, those with two years or less of college, citizens returning from incarceration, and workers displaced from other industries.
- Increasing supplier diversity. From the state house to small towns, municipalities need to diversify their procurement sources. What gets measured, gets managed, so we should require all city and state agencies to report their procurement from minority-owned businesses. A committee could develop a plan to increase procurement from minority-owned businesses in both the public and private sectors. The plan might call for a state- and city-sponsored bond program to enable Black businesses to win larger contracts. In Boston alone, that would help Black-owned firms win a larger share of the city’s annual construction budget.
- Increasing homeownership, through assisting mobile voucher holders to become homeowners, increasing down payment assistance, savings match programs for first-time homebuyers, expanding community land trusts, housing co-ops, and rent-to-buy programs. A task force could review state and city housing policies, including deed restrictions and affordable housing implementation, with the goal of increasing home ownership and equity.
- Increasing returning citizens’ success. Aside from private prison owners, everyone benefits when formerly incarcerated people have employment and housing. We need to rethink workforce development for returning citizens. Jobs that can be performed remotely are often ideal for workers with criminal records or CORIs. If inmates can start working at these jobs before they are released, they will be able to support themselves after release. A task force should develop a plan that includes specific recommendations for assisting returning citizens and lists the agencies with which the state should partner. The plan should also address the best way to leverage volunteers and the faith community’s role.
- Increasing equity ownership in the cannabis industry while improving transparency and accountability for the taxes collected. It’s essential that cannabis taxes go to support programs in the community, not the state’s general fund.
- Leveraging advanced manufacturing and urban manufacturing. Massachusetts needs to develop a strategy for ensuring that what gets invented in the Northeast gets manufactured in Massachusetts. We also need a plan for bringing manufacturing jobs to our urban centers, so we can provide employment for people without bachelor’s degrees, those who need to upskill or reskill, and those with criminal records. With manufacturing becoming increasingly high-tech, there is a growing shortage of workers with the necessary skills. Massachusetts is well-positioned to train and supply the next generation of knowledge workers to meet the needs of manufacturers making advanced products and high-tech components for the life sciences and biotech industries.
- Bridging the brown-green divide. As we transition from the fossil-fuel-based brown economy to a clean, green economy, those who spend the most on energy as a percentage of their disposable income will be least able to afford the transition. We need a special committee to focus on ways to help more people move to clean energy sources.
- Bringing more federal money to Massachusetts. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act could bring tens of millions of federal dollars to our Black and brown communities, including contract opportunities for businesses and job opportunities for workers. The BIL includes $21 billion for environmental remediation, and the IRA has $369 billion to tackle climate change. We should use this funding to build Green Zones in urban areas across the commonwealth. We need a plan to increase our capacity to pursue these opportunities, establish project management offices, and reform procurement practices.
Ed Gaskin is Executive Director of Greater Grove Hall Main Streets and founder of Sunday Celebrations.