Harbor Homes of Martha’s Vineyard recently received a $1,725 check through Feiner Real Estate’s Client’s Choice program, which will go toward purchasing property in Oak Bluffs. Harbor Homes is looking to create the first women’s shelter on-Island.
The Client’s Choice program allows clients to identify a not-for-profit organization each time a property is bought or sold. Feiner Real Estate will donate 10 percent of the profits of the sale to the organization of choice.
According to an email from Harbor Homes director Karen Tewhey, the building will provide permanent housing for five women and one family. Each resident will have their own room and bath, TV, a mini fridge, and a shared kitchen and common space.
“The support of local businesses like Feiner Realty is critical to the expansion of affordable housing for our most vulnerable neighbors,” Tewhey said in the email.
Jim Feiner of Feiner Real Estate told The Times that a client recently chose Harbor Homes as the recipient because the client believed Harbor Homes “was doing really great things for the community, and wanted to provide support.”
Feiner said he looks at the program as a tool that all the agency’s buyers and sellers can use to choose a charity that they feel best represents a goal or initiative they can align most closely with.
Providing the funds to Harbor Homes was “serendipitous,” Feiner said, because he is working with Harbor Homes as their broker during the purchase process for the new shelter. He is also helping the organization raise funds in order to close the $700,000 price gap that currently exists. “They got financing, but the more they raise, the less they have to finance,” Feiner said.
In purchasing the property and creating a new shelter for Island women, he said, the organization will be one step closer to their objective of reducing chronic homelessness on-Island.
“A lot of people don’t realize how bad this problem is, and it’s growing fast. If you are a business and you are doing well, I feel like it is in our moral and personal best interests to give back to the community in some way,” Feiner said.
Visit harborhomesmv.com for more information on the new shelter.
