AB Housing Action support for Jackson-Mann funding
Barbara Parmenter
To: Mayor Michelle Wu
From: Allston-Brighton Housing Action (ABHA)
Subject: Full funding for the Allston-Brighton Community Center in the FY27-FY31 Capital Plan
Date: April 10, 2026
Dear Mayor Wu,
We, the members of Allston-Brighton Housing Action, implore you to fully fund the design and construction of a community center at the current Jackson Mann site in the FY27-FY31 Capital Plan and release a definitive timeline for its construction. The City’s proposed investment of 10 million dollars towards the community center is nowhere near enough to get a Center built. It just kicks the can many more years down the road. You aren’t responsible for Jackson-Mann BCYF deteriorating - that happened during previous administrations - but you are the leader who can finally fix it and provide the critical services that our community needs.
Too often we think your administration has an image of Allston-Brighton residents as people here for a few years, then gone, and that we don’t care about our community. This could not be further from the truth.
ABHA members are workers, artists, students, and retirees. We are people who help our neighborhood to run and be the great place it is, and we have enthusiastically supported your reforms in our community, including zoning reform and mobility improvements. Like our community, the majority of us are renters. Despite many of us working long hours and struggling to pay the rent, we show up to community meetings to “fill the room with sunshine” and promote a future vision for Allston-Brighton where everyone can thrive. We’ve co-hosted a workshop to help people understand the City’s Anti-Displacement Plan, we’ve held Zoning 101 workshops, and we invite our neighbors to monthly coffee hours, walks, and bike rides so that we can understand their hopes and concerns. We show up to volunteer when help is needed, and have helped bridge divides in our community.
But we need something back from you and your administration. We need to have our fully functioning Community Center back. Over 80,000 people call Allston-Brighton home and we want to stay here, in a city where it’s not easy to stay due to high rents and home prices. We love it here - but Allston-Brighton is lacking in one incredibly important piece of infrastructure, the availability of a dedicated, fully functional community center and associated full set of programming.
Jackson Mann is the perfect site to construct a community center in Allston-Brighton. It is transit accessible (near to the 57, 66, and 64 buses as well as the Green Line B), near parks and green space (Ringer Park and Penniman Road Playground), close to businesses and cultural institutions (Brighton Music Hall, the Silhouette Lounge, Holdfast), and located in one of the densest places in the city by population. People will use the space. Since the Jackson Mann site encompasses two parcels, it gives the City the opportunity to develop the second parcel as housing which, with proper funding, can be subsidized such that those units are income-restricted for people who cannot access market rate housing in the neighborhood.
Allston-Brighton deserves public amenities like the rest of Boston’s neighborhoods. Amenities designed by, invested in, and maintained by and for Allston-Brighton residents. Funding the construction of a Community Center at the Jackson Mann site is paramount for this Mayoral administration to demonstrate its commitment to properly investing in the people who live in this neighborhood.
Sincerely,
Allston-Brighton Housing Action (ABHA) Organizing Team
Brandon Stanaway, Barbara Parmenter, Nathan Chui, Mimi Clemens, Cullen Deimer, Ben Heng, Niki Kuchipudi, Audrey Seraphin
Cc:
Liz Breadon, City Council President and District 9 City Councilor
State Rep. Mike Moran, 18th Suffolk
State Rep. Kevin Honan, 17th Suffolk
Ruthzee Louijeune, At-Large City Councilor
Julia Mejia, At-Large City Councilor
Erin Murphy, At-Large City Councilor
Henry Santana, At-Large City Councilor
Claire Kelly, Chief of Staff, Mayor Michelle Wu
Brianna Millor, Chief of Community Engagement
Mohammed Missouri, Executive Director of the Office of Neighborhood Services
Lindsey Santana, Chief of Staff, Office of Neighborhood Services
Ricardo Patron, Chief of Intergovernmental Relations
Kairos Shen, Chief of Planning
Diana Fernandez, Deputy Chief of Urban Design
Kevin M. Carragee
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2026 3:27 PM
To: Brighton Allston Community Coalition <bacommunit...@googlegroups.com>; allstonbr...@googlegroups.com <allstonbr...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: AB Housing Action <abhousi...@gmail.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [Brighton Allston Community Coalition] AB Housing Action support for Jackson-Mann funding
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