As a community, Martha’s Vineyard provides an interesting example of how people do, or do not, work together to solve the problems that impact their lives and prospects for future prosperity. On a weekly basis, this newspaper provides enough material for future sociologists to ponder how our Island microcosm of American society ever survived.
Some weeks, the list seems daunting: a crying need for more affordable housing, an aging population with its unique needs, and the many inconveniences and benefits of living connected to the mainland by a ferry. As a community, we can take some comfort in the fact that earnest, hard-working people — the doers among us — remain undeterred.
Paddy Moore of West Tisbury, chairman of the Martha’s Vineyard Healthy Aging Task Force (HATF) is a doer, who is applying her energy and organizational skills to addressing the needs of the Island’s aging population.
In a story published this week, “Healthy Aging Task Force survey results unveiled,” writer Jack Shea reports on the latest effort by Ms. Moore and her group to organize the Island to confront the challenges posed by the so-called “silver tsunami” of seniors, those 65 year of age and older who are predicted to make up 32 percent of the Island population by 2030.
Mr. Shea reports that the Task Force accomplished a 41 percent return rate on a 50-question survey sent to nearly 5,000 seniors and intended to gauge the needs and wants of the Island’s over-65 population. That is a remarkable achievement, and testament to the group’s effort to encourage participation in the survey by visiting the Island’s boards of selectmen and buttonholing everyone they thought might help.
Undaunted by the scope of the issues identified in the survey, Ms. Moore said the results will help guide HATF to reorganize and refocus its efforts in several areas.
Jim Feiner, owner of Feiner Real Estate and chairman of the Chilmark housing committee, is a doer. In an essay that appears here this week, Mr. Feiner describes the alarming loss of the Vineyard’s already low affordable rental stock, and the need for immediate action to stave off a crisis that has already begun to ripple through our small, isolated Island community.
“To date this year,” Mr. Feiner said, “182 homes under $600,000 changed hands in 2015. These homes represented lots of different types of housing options, including both year-round and winter rental homes that many families in our Vineyard community were dependent upon.
“The sale of homes in this section of the real estate inventory has a profound and dramatic impact on our community. It may not be immediately visible to most of us, but the displacement of the people who lived in these former rental houses has consequences that include the struggle of former tenants to find replacement housing, increased homelessness and for some, a departure from the Vineyard.”
Many of the people who will depart, and those who will be unable to make the Vineyard their home, are the workers that members of the “silver tsunami” will be dependent on for services in the future. They are the workmen and -women who will help with household chores, the home health care aides, and the volunteer firefighters and EMTs who respond in time of need. Where will they live?
Mr. Feiner said the time for concerted action is now. In the meantime, picking up on the example of Tom Seeman, owner of Island Source, Mr. Feiner said he will donate 1 percent of his office and personal rental income to affordable housing to do something to help, and he called on others in the real estate community to do the same.
For as the number of available rental properties shrinks, the list of individuals and families in need of affordable housing grows longer. Yet Island efforts remain isolated, and fall far short of what is needed to make a significant difference.
This week, Barry Stringfellow reports on the long-stalled effort in Chilmark to develop four one-acre lots off South Road for affordable housing — a drop in the bucket when compared with the need — and a model that favors low density and home ownership.
Last week, Mr. Stringfellow reported on a more robust approach on Nantucket (Dec. 3, “Nantucket voters approve groundbreaking zoning bylaws”), which altered its zoning bylaws to allow a development with a single-family-home density of up to nine units per acre and apartment density of up to 23 units per acre.
Adult and Community Education of Martha’s Vineyard (ACE MV) executive director Sam Hart is a doer. As reporter Cathryn McCann described (August 27, “ACE MV will offer master’s degree program to Island teachers”), in January, the continuing-education nonprofit will offer Island teachers the opportunity to get a master’s in education for Curriculum and Teaching through Fitchburg State University’s (FSU) extended campus. The program is the first of its kind for the Island.
Mr. Hart anticipates more such programs. This type of initiative invigorates a community, and Island residents of all ages will benefit from better access to educational opportunities in the future.
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