Islanders plead with lawmakers to pass housing legislation

Updated Sept. 10

Representatives from across the Island traveled to the Massachusetts State House and tuned in virtually on Tuesday morning to passionately advocate for the creation of a housing bank on Martha’s Vineyard; what they said would help create much-needed revenue to support new initiatives on an Island that is suffering with extremely few places to live year-round. 

From leading officials at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and Martha’s Vineyard Hospital to housing planners and real estate agents, locals spoke before the Joint Committee on Revenue on the importance of action, and the untenable situation that Vineyard residents are facing now. 

“Our lives here are at stake,” Wampanoag elder and Aquinnah select board member Juli Vanderhoop said before the committee in the Gardener Auditorium, the state house’s largest hearing room. “We have a natural right to remain on our traditional territories … Land acknowledgements are not enough. We need to drive this home for everyone.”

The legislation before lawmakers — S.1955 and H.3193: An Act Establishing the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank — would allow municipalities the ability to institute a transfer fee on high-end real estate, and, in the Vineyard’s case, create a housing bank. While legislation has failed to pass the last several years, momentum has been building in recent weeks as Island residents, town boards, the Coalition to Create the M.V. Housing Bank, and other housing advocates have urged the public community to speak up about their housing needs and push for legislative change. The hearing Tuesday marked one of the first on the initiative in this legislative session.

It was not just Vineyard residents at Tuesday’s hearing. There were several Massachusetts towns that were pushing for transfer fee legislation, with representatives from all over the state reliving their stories of housing insecurity, experiences with the “shuffle” of moving from residence to residence, and their fear that if action is not taken, necessary and vibrant members of the community will be forced to move away. 

“As all of us know Massachusetts is grappling with a generational housing crisis,” Cape and Islands Senator Julian Cyr said in the hearing. “But nowhere is that crisis more acute than in my district … More than half of our housing stock in these communities sit vacant most of the year, serving seasonal residents and investors rather than teachers, nurses, firefighters, fishermen, hospitality workers [who] keep our communities functioning year-round.”

Cyr categorized the transfer fee — as proposed in the Martha’s Vineyard bill with a 2 percent charge that would be added to real estate purchases over $1 million dollars, with the first million exempt from the fee — as a “sustainable revenue source” and “proven solution.” He referenced land banks on the Vineyard and Nantucket that have funded conservation efforts over the past few decades, and said the efficacy of real estate transfer fees is proven. He said that towns who have representatives clamoring to get this legislation passed cannot wait much longer for action to be taken. 

“If we cannot house the people who make our communities run, the very vitality — and frankly, ability — for a place like Chatham, or Nantucket, or the six towns of Martha’s Vineyard, to function really is called into question,” Cyr continued. 

Two real estate brokers from the Vineyard spoke on behalf of the transfer fee. Past iterations of bills have failed to pass muster, partly due to a real estate lobby pushing hard against the proposal. Both agents clarified that they only spoke for themselves and not the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. 

“I understand that the association and the board are concerned that the transfer fees will have an impact on real estate sales,” local agent Candace DaRosa said. “While they worry about what will happen if there is a transfer fee, many of us wonder what our communities are going to do without it.”

DaRosa appealed to the committee for assistance, and to pass the legislation to the next step. “We can’t wait another 20 years and continue with these trips to the capital to testify and plead with you. Please, give us this tool.”

Many local advocates brought up the many years that have been spent working on getting any legislation like this through. The first time a housing bank was introduced as an option to address local needs was in 2004. And most recently, similar legislation got to the final steps, but was not ultimately passed, in 2024. Over the past 20 years, the strain on local families due to housing shortages has increased immensely, housing advocates noted. 

“We’ve been seeking this tool for years,” Island Housing Trust CEO Philippe Jordi said to the committee. “Voters across all six towns overwhelmingly approved this approach back in 2022.”

As the primary developer of affordable housing on the Island, Jordi spoke to the importance of sustainably creating systems of funding for future efforts. He referenced the 120 percent increase in median home prices over the past decade, and the over 60 percent of homes on the Vineyard that are categorized as vacant for most of the year. 

“We have 4,000 short-term rentals,” Jordi continued. “But fewer than 1,700 year-round rentals … Please give us the ability to help ourselves.”

Julie Fay, a board member of the trustees for the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and co-chair of the Coalition to Create an M.V. Housing Bank, spoke about the large number of hospital employees that commute due to their inability to find appropriate lodging. The hospital is the largest employer on the Island, with nearly 900 employees. But it has struggled in the past with filling positions and keeping doctors and nurses on the Island. Fay said housing is the main reason for that difficulty.

Superintendent of public schools Richie Smith and chair of the All Island School Committee Amy Houghton also described housing as their largest obstacle when staffing positions. Schools are the second largest employer on the Island, after the hospital, with 550 employees. 

“We are seeing more and more teachers in areas of great need leaving the Island over housing issues,” Smith said. 

It isn’t just his teachers that are struggling. Out of the 2,200 students across all public schools on the Vineyard, over 40 percent are of low socioeconomic status, meaning they are below the poverty line, or actively participate in federal relief programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) or MassHealth (Medicaid specific to residents of Massachusetts). Of those 40 percent of students, Smith said, housing is a huge additional obstacle, and the lack of a safe and permanent residence has notably affected their achievement, performance, and behavioral health. 

And for disabled individuals, housing is even more limited. Houghton said the options for the 452 disabled adults who live on the Vineyard are “nonexistent.” 

Houghton also spoke to the number of teachers who are at retirement age. Over 60 percent of the teachers at the Island’s public schools will be retiring within the next 3 to 5 years. With applicants consistently citing housing as the main reason they turn down teaching positions, the situation is even more dire for those working to staff the schools. 

Houghton said there is only one year-round rental advertised to the Vineyard community as of this week, and it’s a one-bedroom apartment for $2,500 a month. A teacher with 20 years of experience, after taxes and health insurance, makes about $5,000 a month, and could only afford to live in that apartment if they were willing to spend over half of their income on housing. That reality, Houghton explained, is unsustainable. 

“Without a significant, year-over-year, predictable, flexible revenue stream, we really have no tool to address this in a holistic way,” Island housing planner for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission Laura Silber said to the committee. “We’re on an Island with limited natural resources, including potable water, so we can’t solely build our way out of this challenge … Addressing these needs is only achievable with a larger, dedicated revenue stream specifically for this purpose.”