Gov. Healey praises Navigator Home project during Island visit

Gov. Maura Healey visited the Vineyard on Monday, and highlighted local efforts to bring housing for healthcare workers and nursing home residents to the Island. 

During the governor’s afternoon trip, Martha’s Vineyard Hospital leadership also voiced fears over potential cuts from the Trump administration and their impact on local healthcare services.

The focal point of Healey’s official visit to the Island on Monday was the development under construction on Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road, which will include 76 beds to house hospital employees and some skilled nursing home staff. On the same Edgartown site will be the nursing facility Navigator Homes, which is expected to be ready in the coming months with 70 beds for seniors. The project has received statewide attention for attempting to solve housing struggles for healthcare workers. 

At the project site, Healey commended the dedication of the Vineyard community in creating a “really impressive” housing development. 

“It is really, really something,” Healey said. “It represents a really strong partnership between a private employer, local government, and private supporters as well.”

Healey called Navigator Homes a model that could be followed across the state, especially since housing costs have been employers’ “greatest financial challenge” in recruiting and retaining workers. 

“If we don’t have a workforce in our hospitals, we don’t have healthcare, and if we don’t have healthcare, we don’t have a safe community and a safe Island,” Healey said. 

Healey and other state officials underscored the dire need for housing across Massachusetts during the visit. The administration found a need for some 220,000 more units to meet demand. Part of her plan includes setting aside state land across Massachusetts for housing, which includes 1.5 acres on Eastville Avenue in Oak Bluffs. 

Hospital president Denise Schepici told Healey that she hopes the property could be used to establish a permanent homeless shelter — something many on the Island have called for but for which advocates have failed to find a permanent location. 

Healey and the entourage with her also highlighted the various ways housing was being addressed through the Affordable Homes Act, including accessory dwelling units by right and the Vineyard’s seasonal communities designation. 

“No challenge is greater and steeper and more urgent for Islanders and Cape Codders than housing,” said State Sen. Julian Cyr, a Provincetown Democrat who represents the Vineyard. 

On the second half of the tour Monday, Healey visited several sections of Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, where staff told the governor about the hospital’s initiatives to meet labor needs and patient care, including efforts to improve health equity among Islanders, particularly for the non-English-speaking population, and making a healthcare career pipeline with the local high school and ACE MV. 

Healey asked how the state could help the Vineyard more, highlighting various difficulties the Island faced, including the operation led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in late May that saw the arrest of some 40 undocumented immigrants on the Vineyard and Nantucket. The MV Times found several individuals arrested had no criminal record, and ICE has so far released information on only one individual, who did have a criminal record in Dukes County Superior Court. Healey told the press on Monday that she still has heard nothing from ICE about its Massachusetts arrests, despite multiple requests from her office to federal officials. She also said she had not been to the ICE holding facility in Burlington, saying “members of Congress are allowed to tour; state officials are not.” 

Questions then turned to the fears hospital leadership felt about possible cuts from President Donald Trump’s proposed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” before the U.S. Senate, especially proposed slashes to Medicaid and Medicare. 

“We’re pretty frightened about that,” said Schepici. She said the impacts could “trickle down” to other issues, like housing insecurity. 

Chris Porterfield, hospital director of food and nutrition, pointed to the Meals on Wheels program that’s bracing for cuts as another concern in the region; Claire Seguin, chief nurse and vice president of operations at the hospital, said she was concerned about the possible hits other services, like cancer care, could feel. 

“We have a huge health safety net population here as well, and that’s running into issues already,” Seguin said. “That’s without the cuts.” 

Healey said she was opposed to the proposed cuts. She also pointed to the economic “uncertainty” surrounding the Trump administration’s tariffs. She said efforts are being made to counteract the detrimental effects of these policies. She also emphasized a mixture of state and philanthropic efforts would be needed to meet the challenges of the healthcare system, like retaining the workforce. 

“I think you are a really resilient group,” Healey said, looking around the rectangular table in the hospital’s Community Research Center room. 

Schepici called Healey’s visit a “really touching moment” for the hospital. For the housing project, she noted that nearly $30 million was raised through private donations, and that around 90 percent of the funds came from 80 donors, many of whom were part-time residents. 

“People just understood the importance of their community hospital,” she said. 

A ribbon-cutting will be held for the workforce housing units on June 20, which Schepici said the hospital hopes to have occupied soon afterward. 

State Rep. Thomas Moakley, a Falmouth Democrat who represents the Vineyard, highlighted that Navigator Homes will be meeting a growing need for senior services on the Island. According to Healthy Aging Martha’s Vineyard, a third of Islanders are 65 or older. 

“The commonwealth cares about older adults being able to grow old in their communities, especially in an isolated community like this,” Moakley said. “Not being forced to move off-Island, away from their homes, away from their families.”

Navigator Homes will also be putting a dent into the hospital’s “housing crunch,” which Schepici said worsened after the COVID pandemic. Schepici enunciated this point by saying the median housing cost had “skyrocketed” from $719,000 in 2019 to $1.5 million in 2021. Additionally, she said the average salary at the hospital was $80,000, higher than the Dukes County average of $66,000. 

“My staff [doesn’t] qualify for affordable housing, so they have to pay market rates,” Schepici said. “That’s what really sparked us to think about how we can support our staff.” 

Healey also visited other areas on-Island. The first stop was ducking into Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway, the wooden boatbuilders right behind The MV Times office in Vineyard Haven. There, she said hello to boatbuilders finishing up their lunches, and listened to their thoughts about the Vineyard.