Winston Pierre, who graduated from UMass Boston in 2015, will appear on the ballot in the municipal election Tuesday, seeking to represent Boston’s 5th district for the next two years on city council.
Pierre challenges incumbent Enrique Pepén, a graduate of Suffolk University, who was elected to represent residents in Hyde Park, Readville and parts of Roslindale and Mattapan in 2023. In the Sept. 29 preliminary election, Pepén beat Pierre 8,008-2,954.
Pierre graduated from Boston Public Schools before coming to UMass Boston, where he majored in political science and minored in psychology. “Having been a UMass Boston student, what it shows me — what it teaches me is to be resilient, is to be strong,” Pierre said.
He recalled working toward his degree, being a member of the honors college, working on campus and contributing to The Mass Media, all while working as a dishwasher at Fenway Park. “That’s who we are, we grind. Nothing ever handed to us, but we never give up,” Pierre said.
One of Pierre’s major policies focuses on improving the quality of public education. “The BPS have almost a billion dollar budget…. Yet our [students] are graduating with no skill and low literacy level. This needs to change and it needs to change now,” he said. “The way we can make our schools more efficient is to incorporate or include job training in our curriculum and into every after-school program.”
Data from U.S. News and World Report shows that just 35% of BPS high school students tested as proficient in reading.
In high school, Pierre was part of the Success Boston Initiative, a program which coaches BPS students to increase the college graduation rate. In 2014, while at UMass Boston, Pierre received an award for his work on a related planning committee.
“We have a staggering report that says it was a double digit of BPS students who drop out of college first year… Not only the literacy rate within our school is low, but also they are not preparing us for the future,” Pierre said.
A 2018 report from Success Boston based on the BPS class of 2011 indicates that approximately 7% of the 2,397 BPS graduates who enrolled in a two- or four-year program immediately after high school dropped out during their first year. That represented approximately 18% of students who immediately enrolled in college but did not receive a degree within 6 years.
He also called for an elected public school committee. “I believe parents should have … a right to participate in the quality of education that their children are receiving,” Pierre said.
Many of Pierre’s other policies focus on affordable housing, including building housing stock on city-owned land. “We have 1,300 parcels of land available. I’m calling [on] the city to use those land to build affordable housing,” he said.
He also said the city needs to look for funding outside of property taxes, such as municipal bonds, to avoid inflating housing costs. “Boston is one of the few major cities in America that rely on property tax to survive,” Pierre said.
“Homeowners pass the cost down to renters, and that creates a whole bubble of instability. This need to stop. We have to find a new way to generate a revenue without putting burden on middle class and those who are struggling to make ends meet,” he said.
With cuts to federal funding likely to increase the city’s budgetary needs, Pierre said it is important to avoid displacing residents. “What I want to do is making sure, number one, the very same people who have built this neighborhood — they can stay and afford to live in the neighborhood,” he said.
Pierre proposed an anti-displacement system that would lock property tax rates for retirees on a fixed income. “It’s about like dignity. How do we make sure that people work their whole life, now they’re retired, that you allow them to retire in peace?” he said. “When you see an 80-year-old, 90-year-old looking for a part-time job as an alternative not to lose his home or her home — that’s not who we are.”
Pierre reminded UMass Boston students to take advantage of the resources on campus, describing internships at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate and in Washington D.C., which he got through connections at UMass Boston. “If I were anywhere else, I wouldn’t get those opportunities,” Pierre said.
“The education that you will receive at UMass Boston is an education that you will not receive anywhere else, he said. “The student you encounter on campus is a student that has real life experience.”
Said Pierre, “It opened my whole perspective about what policy means, what it means to be a public servant, and what I can do as a concerned citizen to advocate for people that I care about.”
