Affordability Top of Mind as Ayah Al-Zubi ’23 Launches Second Run for City Council

Ayah Al-Zubi ’23 first launched her bid for a seat on the Cambridge City Council back in 2023, as a fresh-faced Harvard College graduate. Two years later, she’s back on the ballot and ready to “co-govern.”

Al-Zubi, one of two candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, hopes to center her campaign on her voters — focusing on building social housing, implementing programs for low-income residents, and lowering barriers to participation in local government. Co-governance sits as a core tenet of her campaign, relying on collaboration between elected officials, advocates, and residents.

Al-Zubi, who moved to Cambridge for college, fell just short of sitting on the Council two years ago, ranking 10th out of 24 candidates. She has since worked as a community organizer, street canvassing, door-knocking, and organizing events for Cambridge’s chapter of the DSA.

Al-Zubi led the charge last spring to urge the City Council to continue funding the Transition Wellness Center, one of the city’s largest shelters which was nearing the end of its lease. The City Council, after a month of public hearings, ultimately decided to shut its doors in June.

“I was one of the organizers that empowered the residents in that homeless shelter to come and advocate for themselves, so that they know that they are dignified human beings and have a voice that deserves to be heard,” Al-Zubi said.

The Council allocated $1 million for housing vouchers to help residents who were staying in the TWC when it closed, but has not publicly committed to funding a new shelter. Al-Zubi says she wants to create a new shelter to replace the TWC and expand the municipal voucher program.

Al-Zubi’s campaign aims to tackle the city’s housing crisis from all sides. She has pledged to support the Cambridge Community Land Trust, start a revolving loan fund for affordable housing developments, and strengthen tenant rights.

She also hopes to leverage the city’s triple-A bond rating to create social housing — mixed-income developments owned by the city — to increase Cambridge’s affordable housing stock.

But Al-Zubi says that affordability extends beyond housing. If elected, she hopes to create new programs to tackle the city's cost of living, including establishing a city-owned grocery store, subsidizing bus fares, and making after-school childcare affordable for all residents.

“Our city is quite wealthy, especially with the lowest property tax rates in the area,” Al-Zubi said.

“I would just need to be elected to be able to fight for that so we can explore it and push it forward,” she added.

She chose not to seek endorsements from either of Cambridge’s largest housing advocacy groups — the Cambridge Citizens Coalition, which has largely opposed the city’s upzoning, and A Better Cambridge, a pro-development group.

“At the very end of the day, we can’t expect the same forces that brought us into this housing crisis to take us out of it,” Al-Zubi said.

Al-Zubi is endorsed by Cambridge Bicycle Safety, which supports all candidates who pledge to back their proposal to construct a network of bicycle lanes by 2026.

Compared to her 2023 campaign, Al-Zubi says that actions from the Trump administration have pushed her to advocate for an increase in city-funded services for immigrants.

“Our campaign has really shifted into a very particular focus in 2025 where we are centering the most vulnerable communities first, and we’re relentless about dignity and affordability for everyone,” she said, adding that she hopes to expand multilingual guides for engaging with city councilors.

“Community is how I was raised, and we believe that community is how we’ll win a seat,” Al-Zubi said.

— Staff Writer Summer E. Rose can be reached at summer.rose@thecrimson.com.