SOCIAL ISSUES

In Martha’s Vineyard, even the doctors can’t afford housing anymore

Essential workers can’t afford to stay on the island, putting basic services in jeopardy

By Marissa J. Lang
September 16, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

MARTHA’S VINEYARD, Mass. — The stacks of chicken broth and shelf-stable milk were dwindling as the food pantry entered the last minutes of the day and a 63-year-old woman in a Boston Red Sox mask hurried through the door. {snip} This is the part of Martha’s Vineyard most people never see. An island known for its opulence and natural beauty, a playground for presidents and celebrities, it is kept afloat by workers for whom America’s housing crisis is not an eventuality. It’s here.

Even before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) sent two planes full of asylum seekers to the summer haven this week to make a political point by funneling migrants to liberal communities, the dearth of affordable housing on the Vineyard had pushed the year-round community to a breaking point. Policymakers have chronically underinvested in affordable housing and allowed investment properties and short-term rentals to proliferate unchecked. ... Schools have struggled to staff classrooms. Indigenous people whose families have lived on the island for centuries have been forced to leave their homeland. Firefighters and government workers can’t afford to stay in the communities they serve. People juggling two, three, even four service-industry jobs say they live each month knowing they are one rent hike away from moving into their cars or tents or onto a friend’s couch.

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Even doctors can hardly afford to live here. Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, the largest employer on the island and home to its only emergency room, has for months been operating with a quarter of its staff jobs left unfilled. In January, CEO Denise Schepici offered 19 jobs to doctors, nurses and other workers ahead of the busy summer months, during which the island’s population swells from roughly 20,000 to 100,000 and emergency calls skyrocket. ... Each was turned down. ... “How do you recruit when rents are doubling from $3,000 a month to $6,000 a month, which is what happened to one of my nurses living in a one-bedroom apartment?” Schepici said.

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“We’re hemorrhaging people who are our infrastructure, who hold this community up,” said Laura Silber, the coordinator of the Coalition to Create the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank, which led a successful effort this year to win support for a new fund for affordable housing. “If you don’t have municipal workers, if you don’t have teachers, if you don’t have emergency workers, if you don’t have someone to help families who are struggling and run the food bank, how does a community keep functioning?”

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By Marissa Lang
Marissa J. Lang is a reporter with The Washington Post's social issues team; she is focused on housing, gentrification and the changing face of American cities. She has also covered protests, activist movements and the rise of extremism in the United States. Twitter https://twitter.com/Marissa_Jae