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Cambridge City Councilor Sumbul Siddiqui left her term as mayor after enacting her key priorities of piloting universal preschool and preserving affordable housing. As she runs for her fifth term on the Cambridge City Council, she is positioning herself as an “implementer” who has the experience to make her priorities into policies.
Siddiqui is no stranger to Cambridge nor its politics. She immigrated to Cambridge from Pakistan at just two years old, growing up in the Roosevelt Towers and Rindge Towers — both affordable housing complexes.
“People have a lot of identity in their neighborhood, and as someone who’s grown up in affordable housing in the city in 22 floors, it’s benefited me,” she said. “I also speak from that perspective.”
Siddiqui worked as an attorney providing legal services for low-income Massachusetts residents before running for the Council in 2017. She ascended through the ranks to lead the Council as mayor in 2019, becoming the first Muslim mayor in the state.
But just weeks before the 2023 elections, the Boston Globe published an investigation detailing allegations that Siddiqui fostered a toxic workplace environment as mayor. While she was reelected to the Council that year, Council members did not reelect Siddiqui as mayor.
Siddiqui said the controversy was an opportunity to reflect on her term — but added that she wished she received the feedback directly, prior to the article’s publication.
“It’s been almost two years since that came out,” she said. “I think you just reflect and you grow as a leader. And now that I’m at the Harvard Kennedy School as a Rappaport fellow, I’m having a good chance to reflect on the leadership journey.”
“From that first term to my second term, I think my experience with management definitely improved,” she added. “I have received a lot of positive feedback from a lot of past folks I’ve managed and current folks I’ve managed.”
As her political path in Cambridge has progressed, Siddiqui remains committed to advocating for increased affordable housing in the City. Endorsed by A Better Cambridge, Cambridge Bicycle Safety, and the Cambridge Residents Alliance, Siddiqui said one of her key policy priorities for the next term is making sure Cambridge is affordable for all.
“I’d love for the city to figure out how to create more housing faster,” she said.
Siddiqui served as the housing co-chair for two terms after pushing for a $15 million agreement to protect affordable housing. The agreement, between Rindge Associates Limited Partnership and the City, preserved 504 units, some of which were in the building that Siddiqui grew up in.
Now, Siddiqui said she is “actively looking at strategies and other policy options to unlock housing production.” She specifically referenced tax incentives, inclusionary zoning, and capital funding for housing production as important steps she will take in her fifth term on the Council.
“So I think the next strategy, as we think about it, is how do we make housing production in our city a little bit easier for some of these bigger projects?” she said. “ We’ll be coming back on talking about that in the next term.”
For Siddiqui, affordable living requires accessible resources on all fronts — including childcare.
During her time on the Council as mayor, Siddiqui prioritized the launch of the Cambridge Preschool Program, which provides free preschool to all four year olds and some three year olds in the city.
She also launched and expanded Rise Up — a guaranteed income program that provided 2,000 families with $500 per month for 18 months — which ended in February.
Siddiqui said she hopes to expand the Universal Preschool program, as well as working with the Department of Human Services to develop more after school programs for school-aged children.
“I’d love for us to really talk about expanding after school,” she said. “It’s such a multi-layered issue — it involves working with DHSP to expand the K to eight programming and close the gaps between the seats offered and the demand.”
“I’m looking forward to doing the work there,” Siddiqui added.
—Staff writer Ann E. Gombiner can be reached at annie.gombiner@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Dionise Guerra-Carrillo can be reached at dionise.guerracarrillo@thecrimson.com.
