Voice on Housing: Permanent, Affordable Resource

For many people who live on Martha's Vineyard there is a sharp contrast between the quality of life and the cost of living. The people who live here year round are closely knit. There is a slower pace and an even tempo to the way we engage each other — something is shown in each gesture, and something gathered in observation. We live in a beautiful place, and that doesn't go without saying. However, it is said simply — in the ways we can catch a deep conversation in passing, and then in passing let it go. That is the beauty of this place, a significant quality of our life, our social qualities. But this beauty, the ongoing conversation of who and where we are, is strained by the cost of living. This strain is felt most in the cost of owning a home here. For many people here a home is just not possible.

Quality of Life : Cost of Living

These are our friends and neighbors. We involve ourselves in their lives, discuss the situation, gauge the issue or problem. But as in the passing of a loved one, as they leave we move through our lives with a resigned but heightened awareness. As time goes by and people leave a question arises: is it time to let the larger conversation of beauty go, pass, move on? We all would most likely say "No," and this is precisely the answer people working on affordable housing responded with years ago. How can we grasp this answer fully? A pause, perhaps — that often very hard to come by pause . . .

Community Drain, and Retention

The inability to own a home doesn't just affect the people who can't find an affordable place to live — it affects us all. When people who lack an affordable home move away they leave the community behind and take their knowledge and understanding of it with them. We all suffer, and we all have. If the people who cannot find an affordable home don't leave, they "shuffle" from rental to rental and can lose hope in their future and be socially isolated by the amount of work they have to do to make ends meet. They rent homes, may sleep on couches; a friend of ours rented a recliner one summer. When children are in the shuffle, they must bear up under emotional and educational challenges. (Link: Research on children and homeownership) The community as a whole is challenged as people leave; we lose friends, teachers, firemen, crossing guards, stone masons, artists — the people whose lives and families' lives are invested here. Our children leave. We begin to lose that unspoken connection and drift closer to a community that lacks the diverse aspirations of people who draw their livelihood from the island. We all can become a bit more narrowed, and a concern fills us. This unsettled concern can pervade a conversation and inform a glance. The beauty of this island thins a little, becomes brittle, more fragile — literally exclusive.

As a community, we share this exclusion. Even so, reaching out to those who leave is difficult. The whirl of life here is often a kind of vertigo — summer is busy. There is a collective exhale in September. In this seasonal pause, we again have an opportunity to see and share more fully in the lives of people around us. But, as in watching a movie, there can be a distanced participation with those who "do the shuffle". As seasons go by the social landscape changes; our friends are gone, living in Ohio, Maine, in the Berkshires, phoning home. This a real exclusion, the final off-island crossing — just said bye to a woman and her family who made that crossing today — and it's hard to step across that economic divide with them.

Wages and Housing Cost

The numbers tell the story of affordability and availability. They cut through any indefinite idea or misinterpretation to provide a clear picture of an island undergoing a profound economic and social transition. They speak to this division. According to a 2005 Housing Needs Assessment, produced for the Island Affordable Housing Fund by Development Cycles in 2004, median prices for homes were at least 84% higher than the Massachusetts state average and wages 32% lower. (Link: 2005 Needs Update) The study found that between 2001 and 2004 wages fell in relation to Massachusetts averages, and that the cost of middle- and low-price homes grew four and a half times faster than median income. In 2007 the price of land and homes here is still on the rise and wages are flat or falling. In hard 2006 numbers, according to LINK data compiled by REMAX, the median price home by town was WT $759, 500 -- VH $647,500 -- OB $632,000, -- ED $747,000 -- CH $2.1M -- AQ $487,000. (Link: LINK Real estate Prices) The 2005 wage data from the state point to a median wage increase of 2% in 2006, still lower than 2001, and an average weekly wage of $739.00. (Link: 2006 Massachusetts Wage Data) What all this means to people here is that the average Dukes County wage worker earning $2,956 per month before taxes would have to carry a $600,000 mortgage, or around $3,700 per month. (Link: Dukes County Wage Data Spreadsheet ) Clearly, this is not affordable. For these people, the median income vs the escalating cost of a home is a real disparity — many people just cannot afford to own homes here.

Nonetheless, what are these numbers to others who have their own home economy? My family's savings is meager. We have a soon-college-bound 16 year old, and an empty nest also signals an empty Co-op Bank account. Though we have security, we don't rest easy. We are fortunate to own a home, but our understanding that others have a hard time buying a home is there. It shades the beauty of this place, adds a tone to conversations, and sometimes it alters the way I appreciate the light on our surrounding oaks. For us this is mild but persistent exclusivity.

Housing Stock and Availability

Understanding that affordability has a definite and clear limit helps clarify the economics of housing. Appreciating that there is a finite amount of land and that there are limited number of houses on this water-bound place is also revealing. It reveals that the very boundaries of our place shape and in many ways determine how we find housing and in what house we call home. Sometimes it bears repeating: we live on an island. This fact limits the availability of land to build on. Dealing within these limits is not just a geographical issue. It is an issue of time. As time passes, the boundaries we abide by change. More people arrive; more leave.

There are about 15,800 people in the year-round community, and based on a 2001 estimate year-round residents occupy 45% of island houses, or around 7250 housing units. The data on the relationship between building permits and houses built are not entirely clear. However, assuming 45% of permits were pulled for year-round residents there was a growth of 83 housing units in 2006. (Link: 2006 Dukes County Building Permit Data ) There is no 2006 data stating how many of these were affordable houses. Even so, with the estimated island population increase of 1.3% the creation of year-round housing is just barely keeping pace with the population growth. It is interesting to note that Massbenchmarks projects a year-round island population of 18,116 by the year 2010. (Link: Download Massbenchmarks Growth Spreadsheet ) This would be more than the 1.3% growth over the last few years, and in their projections it is unclear how many of these new residents will be median wage-earners. Given the current price of land and homes it would be hard to imagine many, if any at all. Considering the current slow growth in the median wage for the average worker, this projection of 2,300 new people in the next few years is one sign that there will continue to be a need for affordable housing to sustain the low- to median-income community well into the future.

There are times when we can reckon with the future, and times we can't — sometimes the future just arrives. The growth of children and aging of relatives speak to this reckoning. But the monthly bills and housing costs bring this economic future on most frequently. We can see these bills coming. However, we don't know who will arrive here and how the economics of this island will change. But one thing is certain. New resident growth is trending toward those who can afford to be here. Without job growth for year-rounders our current definition of year-rounder will change. This kind of reckoning has been on the minds of the people providing affordable housing here for some time.

Redefining Value

In a place where a home can be as large as 25,000 square feet and cost as much as 25 million dollars the notion of value can't help but be skewed. In this context, when we think of land and houses, "value" is most often considered a commodity — something marketed. But the people working to provide permanently affordable housing here define "value" as value of community — as different from commodity. (Link — New York Times: Valuing Home over House ) The value of land becomes "where we live," of houses becomes "homes" and the value of the people here becomes "community."

Witnessing and Understanding

For the people working at it, the effort to develop a permanently affordable housing resource for Vineyarders has had two outcomes, one intended, the other a welcome consequence. In the last seven or eight years people have witnessed and come to know how successful models of affordability can keep people here and can be integrated into the community. These models, like Sepiessa and the houses at the blinker, and projects like Takemmy Path and 150 State Road, show the possibility of comfortably housing a few more people on an acre of land. They show it is possible to build high-quality, low maintenance homes. Moreover, in large part because of these projects and others, Vineyarders also gain a shared understanding of how to stop the slow but persistent leak of people off the island. In the psyche of our community, these models act to redefine the language of "affordability" and to imbue "affordability" with a new concept of "community value." Efforts to create affordable housing help us understand that we can provide affordable homes and in the process extend, deepen and keep intact our sense of community.

Hope

Still, the picture remains uncomfortable for those who see the breakup of community happening, and it may be even dire for people like the Higgins family. Voicelink: Video — Higgins Family Video ) A hardworking island family with two young children, they move from season to season. "Dad" works six days a week, he makes "good money," but he's put it all into his business in the last five years. He says, "I just can't crack that nut." For the Higgins family the challenges extend beyond financial ones. Their young boy is upset when they move and is quietly emphatic: when asked "Where are we right now?" he replies, "My house," although they live in a rental. Even though this view into a family's struggles is unsettling, hope remains. People who gain homeownership project their lives into the future; they make commitments — they relax and spread out. And the efforts of those people creating affordable housing create hope. (Voicelink: Podcast — Derrill and Mitzi ) As Derrill Bazzy says, "Our most important mission at the housing committee is creating hope . . . because if there is no hope [people] leave, and they don't often come back . . . It's as much about creating hope as creating housing."

Wendy Swolinsky is a person who conveys that hope to the community. Wendy won the right to build and pay the mortgage for an affordable home of her own. (Voicelink: Video: Wendy Swolinsky ) An Aquinnah resident for 28 years, she "moved twice a year at a minimum." As she says, "You can't just haphazardly save your life's possessions. You feel that your self-worth is . . . five paper clips, a can opener, a stereo, a used piece of furniture . . . you lug this stuff back and forth." Now, she can provide a home for her college age daughter, and can allow her daughter to finally paint her own room, something she's never had, the color she wants — red.

The Process — A Course in Sustenance

The process of building and providing affordable homes for people on Martha's Vineyard creates successful models that redefine the meaning of value. Affordable homes instill hope in a community. Perhaps most importantly, homes revitalize people who in turn invest themselves to strengthen the community connections they once felt tenuous, frayed and fragile. Affordable housing weaves us back together. These important social and economic connections are just now being realized and understood. What has occurred in the last 7 years or so on the island could be considered a master class in how to bring people together to create the structure, organizational strength and funding strategies to build a permanent affordable housing resource for Vineyarders. Just seven years ago this was a different story: this was a different story: (Link: 2005 MVCommission Hearing)

"In the year 2000, the Vineyard had few models, no needs assessment, no functioning affordable housing committees, no town funding for affordable housing, no rental conversion programs, no house moves programs, no Island Housing Trust, few land bank collaborations, and no down payment assistance programs. "
These entities and efforts now not only exist, but they are working every day to provide affordable housing for Vineyarders. Refined deed restrictions, creative zoning, organizational knowhow and structure, land bank collaboration and town funding all are in place and work well as an integrated process. Since the year 2000 the process of building and providing affordable homes for islanders has been refined to the point that, in John Abrams' words, "If you look at the affordable housing problem as an arc, we are right at the top of that arc right now, and in a certain sense, this is a problem that has been solved." (voicelink: John Abrams Interview )

The Collaborators and Bigger Picture

The creation of affordable homes on Martha's Vineyard is a complex process — for everyone involved. Each land acquisition, rental conversion, home construction and qualified applicant is the result of a choreography of many people and organizations. Bringing it all together requires sensitive timing and an intimate understanding of all the pieces. No one person or agency does it. There are towns, banks, organizations, and individuals working with land, limited housing stock, regulatory agencies and legacy issues. Without the alignment and coordination of different groups of people affordable housing would not be created on Martha's Vineyard.

Understanding the who, what and how of affordable housing created here can be confusing, even for old-timers. While there are 32 entities (organizations, committees and towns) on the island contributing to the creation of affordable housing, the hub of affordable housing efforts on Martha's Vineyard is the Vineyard Housing Office. (Llnk: 2007 Island Plan Housing Forum) The VHO on State Road in Vineyard Haven houses The Island Affordable Housing Fund, the Island Housing Trust and the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority. These three organizations work collaboratively with other island housing entities to make affordable housing available to the people who need it.

Looking at the VHO and its organizations from the perspective of a recent project will help piece together the puzzle of just how affordable housing is created on the island — and how intricate and seamless the collaboration must be to make it all happen.

Money: The Island Affordable Housing Fund

The Island Affordable Housing Fund is just that, a funding body that provides other organizations with money to acquire land, to coordinate building, renovation and other projects, and to maintain and manage a pool of qualified applicants. ( Voicelink: Manning interview ) With the contributions from foundations, individuals and businesses and through special events and investments the IAHF wholly funds the Island Housing Trust and the Housing Authority. It also provides financing to individuals through second-mortgage programs and housing loan pools.

Funding 150 State Road in Vineyard Haven

150 State Road in Vineyard Haven is a two house, four-unit affordable housing project on a one acre piece of property. The funding for 150 State was an aggregate of operational funding and loans for purchasing and construction. Land cost is high, and not easily recouped in the sale of an affordable project. It's important to have low land costs, so that in turn the price of each unit is kept low. The purchase of this property was possible because George Schiffer willed it to be made available for affordable housing — the property was sold to IAHF for half of its appraised value. Still, there was a big funding gap. The operational funding for the management of development came from The Island Affordable Housing Fund. In the case of 150 State, the loan for land purchase and construction came from loans and donations from several sources: the town of Tisbury contributed $150,00 in CPA funds (see link below). Through the efforts of the IAHF it was possible to raise the approximately $300,000 to meet the gap between land cost and and the projected sale prices of the units. And a donation of $50,000 from Michael Kidder rounded out the $500,000 needed for the purchase of the property. Loans for construction and development came from The Life Initiative, a consortium of insurance companies in Boston devoted to community development. (Link: The Life Initiative)

Other projects are similar. For the houses at the blinker, IAHF money, Oak Bluffs Community Preservation Act funds and loans from banks were used to defray the costs of land acquisition and construction. ( Link: Community Preservation Act )

Developing Housing: IHT

As we see from the description of 150 State Road, it is typical in a single housing development for Island Housing Trust to juggle many different entities — from the Land Bank to donors and loan officers, construction contractors and subs, architects and applicants — all trying to stay on-budget and on-time. It's a hard job. One person said "it's perhaps the hardest job on the island."

As the housing developer within the VHO, the Island Housing Trust has also built upon the efforts of people in the late 60's and 70's to create long-term, affordable housing through restrictive deeds. (Link: 40B information) These deeds have been refined over the years into an important tool that the IHT uses to create permanently affordable land trusts. As part of its long-term strategy, the IHT establishes a renewable 99-year ground lease modeled after Community Land Trusts. (Link: IHT & Land Trusts & Conservation-Based Affordable Housing ) By using renewable leases the land is set aside, or conserved, as with the Land Bank, and affordability becomes permanent. Along with establishing land trusts, the Housing Trust manages development, negotiates with zoning boards with the Land Bank cooperation towns and others to develop residential home sites. (Link: Land Bank and IHT ) Coordinating efforts, timing purchases with financial resources, and day to day management involves a lot of people and a great deal of determination.

With respect to 150 State Road, construction coordination alone involved acquiring, partially dismantling, and moving of a house owned by Michael Kidder (formerly Travis Tuck's) one third of a mile up State Road to its new site. In addition to moving the upper story of that house, the IHT also oversaw the construction and renovation of the house after it was situated on the property, and the renovation of the existing house on the property.

In other projects, such as Takemmy Path, development coordination involves collaboration with the Land Bank for conservation restrictions in zoning to aid the purchase and management of deeded land trusts. James Lengyel wrote of the Land Bank's accomplishments in a December 2005 piece for the MV Times:

In 2005, the land bank finalized its most recent such project. A 16-acre property in Tisbury, off Takemmy Path and owned by Linda Kelsey, was subdivided by the Land Bank so as to separate the existing house from the woodland surrounding it. The total price was prorated between the Land Bank and the Island Housing Trust Corporation (IHTC), resulting in IHTC's purchase of an acre - upon which it then went on to create three affordable dwellings - for a total of $48,430. The remaining 15 acres will be forever wild.
(Link: MVTimes )

This relationship of conserving the people of the island while conserving the land happens more frequently. In Aquinnah, for example, there have been at least three such "collaborations" to date, in 2007.

People: The Dukes County Regional Housing Authority

Although all of the VHO organizations are focussed on housing people, and it would be unfair to characterize any one as more "people focussed," the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority (DCHRA) has a considerable relationship with the people served by the VHO.

The shuffle from one rental to another coupled with the high seasonal rents in a resort market, create a lot of stress on people who rent. The DCRHA coordinates a multi-part program to house the people who live with this stress. Its primary focus is providing affordable rental apartments and house rentals. The Authority owns or manages 57 rental units on the island. (Link: DCRHA rentals ) In addition to rental property development and management, the Housing Authority supplies 60 rental assistance vouchers to landlords and tenants and assists homebuyers, helping them with the application process and education.

With these programs the Housing Authority gains considerable understanding of people and manages a database of rental applicants. One of the Housing Authority's key functions is pre-qualifying homeowner applicants in order to both ease the transition for people who are first time buyers, and to increase the likelihood that the VHO's programs will succeed. The ownership programs focus on people with a range of incomes.

In the case of 150 State Road, the Housing Authority drew from a pool of applicants who not only qualified for a mortgage, but were also pre-screened by the bank for credit worthiness for low- moderate- and middle-income homes (people who earned between $30,000 – $80,000 per year). These people then went through a homeowner education program prior to the lottery. The education programs help people understand the requirements of homeownership. For 150 State Road, the lottery was for one one-bedroom at $145,000 and three two-bedroom homes (at $200,000, $250,000 and $300,000). (Voicelink: David Vigneault, Candidate Pre-Qualification )

Because of all the pre-qualification, and the understanding by applicants that they are taking on a mortgage, it is clear that the lottery is not a raffle or a scratch ticket. A lottery may be, as David Vigneault says, a funny way to run a housing program. (Voicelink: Lottery ) But the perception that it is a give-away is proved wrong once the entire process is understood.

The Towns and People: Understanding

Not long ago the idea of affordable housing here was misunderstood. Several factors contributed to this misunderstanding. The quiet focus on self-sufficiency, a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality and the perceived "dishonor" of so-called handouts, cast a pall on lottery winners by labeling them cheats or free-riders. In a culture of self-sufficiency it is hard to accept that economic assistance might be necessary to conserve people here. The idea that houses are commodity investments and "not in my back yardism" all contributed to different misunderstandings. Ingrained in the notion of "getting ahead" is the idea that investments are a right, and that houses as commodities go hand in hand with our rights as Americans. With the perception that affordable homes degrade the commodity value of houses, "not in my back yardism" sometimes pits the wealthy seasonal owner against the prospect of financial loss. The demand for the protection of those rights of investments has resulted in nimby land use law suits. (Link: Chappy Affordable Housing) The sharp line between definitions of value is no clearer than in these legal battles.

Nonetheless, where once these battles polarized the community, they now reveal a public opinion that is less divided. Nimby lawsuits provide perspective and an insight into just how much most islanders now understand the need to keep people here through affordable housing efforts. A community ethic has been created, and a clarity of what's right and sensible for sustaining our community is revealed. This ethical perspective and understanding is in large part the result of the efforts of the VHO and the many people working hard over the last decade. With their efforts comes an appreciation that people who are granted the opportunity to own a home here through lotteries don't so much "win" a house as they earn a right to own a home and pay a mortgage. They earn the right to be invested in the place they live. The new homeowners given this opportunity understand something deeply; that with self-sufficiency and independence comes a profound responsibility to community and the people around them. Along with this ethic comes a greater understanding by the community of both a sense of fairness and of our future.

Future

It is folly to blindly tell the future. But, it is equally foolish not to try to put into place structures, organizations and to gain the knowhow so that we do not step into a future that is out of our hands. The remaining piece of the affordable housing puzzle is The Martha's Vineyard Housing Bank.

The Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank will be funded by a one percent transfer fee on real estate transactions above $750,000, to be paid by the seller. This would generate an estimated $2.3 million annually and with the Housing Bank’s expanded eligibility guidelines more people will benefit. The Housing Bank would operate much as the Land Bank does now, under the direction of a central committee and local CPA advisory committees.
(Link Reference: MV Housing Bank )
The Housing Bank would create a ready pool of funds that could be combined with CPA funds to enable a rapid response body which could buy houses and land when they become available. The resulting greater purchase power and flexibility would permanently ensure affordability.

There really is no conclusion to this story. It's ongoing. But what is clear from this side of the conversation is that our entire community now has the tools, capacity and hard-won insight to recognize that affordable housing is important, perhaps vital, to our future. It could be said that this community value, the understanding of the value of providing affordable homes to islanders, is not something down-the-road, but it is here, now. We understand. With this understanding there is actually more work. Even so, as a community of islanders who possess this shared knowledge the work is much easier and considerably more rewarding for us all.