The Island’s only shelter for the unhoused is forced to move next month, and their search for a permanent building further highlights a gap in services that recent reports have indicated is only growing, largely due to the lack of any Island-wide municipal effort to solve the issue.
The 25-bed-capacity emergency winter shelter, run by the nonprofit Harbor Homes, has been operational since 2019. For the past four years, they’ve taken up residency in a building at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS) that’s set to be demolished in March, as part of Community Services’ broader expansion project that’s long been in the works.
All the while, Harbor Homes has unsuccessfully looked for a more permanent location, stymied by a combination of restrictive zoning, infrastructure challenges, and residents who don’t like the idea of a shelter in their neighborhood.
Harbor Homes will instead lean on the Island’s faith community to help shelter the unhoused, a year past the reports of a record number of guests using the facility.
It’s unclear what the plan is for those experiencing homelessness this summer, with no year-round shelter, and many unhoused people reported to be living in the State Forest.
The shelter closure comes at the same time as two reports from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) have highlighted the homelessness issue.
One of these reports, the “2024 M.V. Housing Needs Assessment” from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission with Karen Sunnarborg Consulting, publicized in October, states that a significant reason why homelessness has continued to grow is because towns across the Island haven’t taken action yet.
“The absence of a County Public Health Department for the Island contributes to the lack of an integrated public health response to homelessness,” the report states. “A more robust array of public health services in general is required to address the needs of unhoused residents.”
Local health agents from three different towns said there is no Island-wide, concerted effort to address the unhoused here. All of them said they would help if a plan was put into action, but as of now, their role is to minimize disease and health risk as it arises in that population.
Aside from the needs assessment report, a subsequent supplementary zoning analysis, prepared by the MVC and the Barrett Planning Group, further highlights a lack of zoning to accommodate a permanent unhoused shelter — which helps explain why Harbor Homes, a nonprofit, has struggled for years to find a permanent location.
According to the 2024 zoning analysis, there’s an increase from the M.V. Commission’s estimate of 120 unhoused individuals in 2023. The report stated, “On any given day in Dukes County, in 2024, up to 150 individuals face homelessness … 54 guests accessed the Emergency Shelter this winter [2023–24], a significant increase from past years.”
While some unhoused individuals sleep in their car, crash at a friends’ house, or sleep outside, many others rely on the hospitality of the shelter and their volunteers.
The “2024 Housing Needs Assessment” suggests that local town officials look to zoning bylaw changes or departmental adjustments that could create more opportunities for resident housing if they want a thriving community that reflects a range of income statuses. Rising housing costs cater to a population that can afford them, forcing some longtime residents to move, and others to end up without a home, the report suggests.
The assessment also called out the “Island Shuffle,” a phenomenon where locals are forced to move frequently to adjust to the Vineyard’s seasonal changes. According to the report, this has contributed to a rising unhoused population.
As a result, the demographics of those utilizing the winter shelter are changing — more working adults have found solace at Harbor Homes after losing housing in the off-season.
“Of those who are confronting homelessness, many are contributing members of the Island’s local economies,” the report stated.
Following the publication of the reports, there has been some effort aimed at addressing the issue, though it’s unlikely any meaningful change will come by the time Harbor Homes closes its shelter — scheduled for March 1.
Mark Leonard, Oak Bluffs select board and affordable housing committee member, told The Times that the zoning analysis came out too late for the town to submit zoning articles for town meeting this spring.
“November would be the earliest that [zoning bylaw changes] would be presented to the town for a vote,” Leonard said.
But he clarified that zoning bylaws might not help the building search for Harbor Homes with the immediacy it requires, even if they were changed sooner. Zoning bylaws are a long-term solution, but finding a building for a new shelter is a short-term problem.
According to Leonard, the significance of these reports is that they bring the attention of the towns to the growing crisis of unhoused Islanders, and pave the way for future action. The next steps they’re taking to mitigate housing concerns are the development of a Housing Production Plan.
“We’re going to start the process next week,” Leonard said. “The Housing Production Plan could be done in four to six months … It is an action plan of how the towns could meet their goals.”
The goals include addressing the unhoused population here, and the housing crisis as a whole.
Even though they’re about to encounter some big changes, the leaders of Harbor Homes are still committed to its continuing aid for the unhoused population, and they are optimistic.
Lisa Belcastro, the shelter director, said they will turn to community churches to provide a space for residents. That will require them to move and set up 25 cots in different locations, and juggle their operations between two churches. She described the process as arduous. The toll of moving all their supplies is part of their motivation for a permanent location.
An upgraded facility is another. “At this point, [we’re] looking to build or design the Harbor Homes center. This will include our offices for the staff, and a warming center for the winter,” Belcastro said.
Despite the increased workload ahead, Belcastro remains hopeful for the future of the shelter. Belcastro and her team have looked at more than four dozen properties over the past three years. They’ve also pursued building a space from the ground up, but haven’t found the appropriate land to build on thus far. And some of the obstacles in their way are not what they expected.
According to Belcastro, she was surprised that wastewater accommodations have been the biggest tell for whether a property will work for them or not. Many of the properties they’ve seen have simply not had the capacity for the amount of people they need to house.
They had to pull out of their agreement to purchase a building in Oak Bluffs in September 2024 after their request for additional wastewater flow was denied by the town.
“I have been at a site looking at a building, asked about wastewater, and walked out,” Belcastro said. “Sometimes all I hear is, ‘There’s not enough wastewater.’”
They also got to the permitting stages at a location in Oak Bluffs in 2023, but had to pull out after facing backlash from neighbors, and after a local board required approval from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
There also aren’t many options for the high occupancy they require.
“It’s a long process,” Belcastro said of the building search. “It’s a very hard market to house hunt in — this is a sellers’ market, not a buyers’ market.”
While MVCS may not be able to house Harbor Homes anymore, it is still solidly in its corner. “Harbor Homes and Community Services have always worked very closely together,” Scott Turton, interim CEO of MVCS, told The Times. “We’re both supporting the most vulnerable in the community.”
MVCS has been working on its expansion project since around 2017. It has already completed phase one, which included a renovation of the Early Childhood Education Center, and now it is on phase two — a rebuild of the main center, which includes counseling, disability services, and administrative offices.
The next steps are more involved, and require the demolition of some buildings, including the winter shelter. MVCS has already moved some of its offices into temporary spaces while the build is underway.
“It’s taken a while to get to this point, where we’re talking about construction,” Turton said.
Brian Morris, the director of Harbor Homes, believes in its mission to house a vulnerable population and find a new permanent location. “[We are] forever indebted to MVCS for their acts of incredible largesse through the years. And just as they are making a move, we too are poised to find the ideal setting for our new Harbor Homes Center, which goes way beyond the notion of merely putting heads in beds. It’s programming, offices, a shelter, and community outreach all under one roof,” he said in a statement to The Times.
It’s beyond sad that the towns and people in them cannot open their hearts sufficiently to house unhoused people. The spot in Oak Bluffs seemed rather ideal but the neighbors would apparently rather have rowdy young summer workers than the unhoused people who actually live and work here year-round. The wastewater issue is something I know little about, except that we were promised connection to it when it was built, probably 40 feet from my house, but no, didn’t happen. Best of luck to Harbor House and the MVCS.
The Vineyard population should be hanging their heads in shame. Historically the island rallies in support of victims of catastrophic events, etc fires, car, accidents, etc. Why not rally around the homeless, who have been many cases are in a situation there is not their fault..
If you build it they will come. Everywhere in the US homeless gravitate to those areas that are accommodating. Build more and more homeless. This is a destination resort with hard working seasonal residents–not a place for homeless. Nothing to do with compassion. Go to places with large geography who can handle this kind of integration.
Well said. I was searching for a response to the article.
Sadly, there is always a small percentage of any community that for whatever reason are homeless. The island is no exception, some of the homeless are island born and raised, what right do have to tell them to get off the island.
Why would it matter if they were “island born and raised”? There’s no birthright to live in a town you were born and raised in. If so, send the ones not born and raised here back to the towns that they came from.
Where have I heard that “send them back” rhetoric before ?
Virtually all of the homeless on MV are from somewhere else. Its not about rights its about opinions. They would get better services in larger cities.
I am not telling them to do anything Packer. I am simply saying better places with more facilities are elsewhere. BTW homeless do not exist in every community. They dont exist in most communities.
It is simply not true that people flock to MV to take advantage of our winter shelter. Homeless populations don’t have the resources or inclination to leave familiar , supportive locations they have spent their lives supporting. In hard times their inclination is to stay put no matter what. This is the vast majority of Martha’s Vineyards unhoused. It’s a community problem and it requires a community solution.
This can be permitted as a 40B as is done in many places across the Commonwealth…..
This would bypass the local resistance NIMBY.
The probability the zoning change gets approved is low compared to permitting this as a 40 which is high.
The Hall family has enough unused properties to house all the homeless from here, Nantucket and probably part of the cape. Not sure if taking by eminent domain is possible but I would think that the neighbors of these properties would rather have “homeless” than the condition they’re in dropping their property values. Hall Gate maybe. No neighbors to complain. I do remember Ben Junior up in arms at the town meeting rallying for funding to solve the “affordable problem “. Just say’n
Buck Martin Edgartown
So if you are homeless for a while through no fault of your own, — like for example your landlord decides that they want to cash out, sell the house you have been renting for the last 10 years and live in Paris, you should move off the island ? In this weeks’ classified section , there is one year round rental advertised– 2 people max, no pets.. A family of 3 or a person with a cat is out of luck this week. But,you think they should go somewhere else. Well , “somewhere else” doesn’t want homeless people either. I don’t know for sure, but a friend of mine said Melbourne Fl. has some vacancies on the street in front of some of their beachfront penthouses, it’s a lot warmer there which really matters if you are living in a cardboard box. And not only that, the Florida economy is booming and real estate is cheap.
Yes Move out and off the island and commute to work if you still want to keep your job. Many do this.
Excellent article.
At some point the Island is going to need to confront this issue more specifically. There are some tough choices ahead of us.
Homeless folks deserve our support–a country can be measured by how it provides for its needy citizens. But we have limited resources and funds to give to that cause, which may drive us to place limitations on that support.
In the future, we will probably need to focus our help on the transitional population–in other words, those who have recently become homeless, and/or those who have a realistic chance at becoming self-supporting in the near future. It it unlikely to be efficient to continue to provide long-term assistance on MV (in one of the most expensive markets in the country.)
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