West Tisbury resident Arielle Faria, a housing advocate who was part of a coalition pushing for housing legislation last year at the state’s capitol, is joining the race to represent the Vineyard, Nantucket, and parts of Falmouth at the Massachusetts State House.
Faria, project and program development manager at the Island Housing Trust, announced on social media on Saturday that she will be running for the house seat as a Democrat.
“It’s time for the islands to have representation,” Faria said in a comment to The Times, noting that it has been a long time since the seat was held by an Islander.
Sources close to her campaign say that Faria has started off her campaign well with fundraising.
Faria joins Falmouth Democrat Thomas Moakley, who was the first to announce his campaign for the State House in December.
Moakley and Faria are both running to replace state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, who announced last year that he would not be seeking re-election. Fernandes is instead running for state Senate to represent Plymouth and Barnstable counties in this year’s election.
Faria will host a meet and greet at the ArtCliff Diner in Vineyard Haven on Saturday, March 23, from 4 to 7 pm.
“If you know me, you know how deeply I care for my community, for the people, animals, and nature. If you don’t know me, I invite you to get to know me,” Faria wrote in her campaign announcement Saturday.
In comments made to The Times on Monday, Faria said that the most important issues in her campaign are housing, climate resilience, and mental health and substance use disorder.
“It all starts with housing,” Faria said.
The West Tisbury resident serves as a co-chair for the Coalition to Create the MV Housing Bank. In that capacity, she’s been an advocate for affordable housing on the Island, and was one of around 250 Islanders traveling to the State House in Boston last year to advocate for the passage of the real estate transfer fee and other housing solutions. The transfer tax would build revenue through a fee on high-end real estate.
Faria said that she has seen Island businesses and municipal governments struggle to find enough staff, whether it be teachers, firefighters, or police officers. And she has seen gaps in funding for projects that would go to develop housing for those workers. A tax on real estate transfers would supply that funding source. “We need a steady stream of funding specifically for housing needs,” she said.
Faria also has six years of experience as the affordable housing manager for the town of Edgartown.
As for coastal resilience, she says she hopes to advocate for the resources Islanders need to cope with a changing climate. “Everyone on the Vineyard, especially this year, has seen the effects that climate change is having on our coast,” Faria said. “We are steadily running out of time.”
She is also hoping to push for more resources to help address the mental health crisis on the Island and region.
State Senator Julian Cyr — who represents the Islands — stopped short of endorsing a candidate this early in the race, but said that Faria has a proven track record as a leader. “She has been tenacious and collaborative, and has been able to bring people together on an Island where it is hard to get two people to agree to anything,” Cyr said.
“I’m excited that we have two strong candidates running for state representative, and we’ll see if anyone else pulls papers,” Cyr added. “I need a strong partner on Beacon Hill to take up the mantle from Dylan, and continue to work hard on behalf of Islanders — I’m confident that both Arielle and Thomas would do a great job representing Martha’s Vineyard, Falmouth, and Nantucket.”
Faria has landed an endorsement already from former Massachusetts housing secretary Dan O’Connell, who served under Deval Patrick. O’Connell worked with Faria in her capacity as co-chair of the housing coalition. “She is a leader on housing on the Island,” O’Connell said, who is now a board member with MassDevelopment.
“I think she’ll bring a broad perspective if elected, and I think she has a really good shot,” O’Connell said.
The primary for the State House seat will be held in September, before the general election in November.
Arielle is just who we need to represent the our interests at the State House!
Since we’re on the topic of housing, here’s what’s happening in Paris:
“The fight, he said, is against forces that make buying Parisian real estate impossible for all but the well-to-do, including buyers who snap up apartments as pieds-à-terre and then leave them empty for most of the year. Paris has also sharply restricted short-term rentals, after officials became alarmed when historic neighborhoods, including the old Jewish quarter, the Marais, appeared to be shedding full-time residents as investors bought places to rent out to tourists.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/realestate/paris-france-housing-costs.html
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