SHADOWS

An update on Nantucket’s housing crisis

On paper, the numbers are dismal. The median price of a home on Nantucket is around $3.36 million, according to Fisher Real Estate Nantucket. Assuming you have $720,000 for a down payment, the annual salary necessary to qualify for a mortgage at current loan rates is $630,000. The average salary of a teacher, police officer or firefighter on island: roughly anywhere from about $70,000 to a little over $100,000.

In real life, the numbers add up to something more dismal still. Middle school music teacher Nick Hayden has moved nine times in the 11 years he has been here, at one point staying in a cottage with no heat. Hayden spends $30,000 of his $70,000 salary on annual rent plus several thousand more a year on utilities, working two or three side hustles to make ends meet. And he will lose his lease in a year and a half. “I have entered a few lotteries for my own home,” says the single father, “one for Habitat [for Humanity] and two for affordable housing through Housing Nantucket. I made it into the final drawing for two of them but didn’t get picked. Before even entering the lottery, I had to write a letter of how I would have gotten the $10,000 down payment. I was going to sell my car.”

The tales get worse. “We have heard stories in recent years of people living in a shipping container,” says Tucker Holland, Nantucket’s municipal housing director, “third world-ish situations here on an island with a lot of abundance.” There have been people living out of their car or in a garage with nothing but a hot plate. er husband was offered a new job with more pay, but their rental unit was owned by his employer, and if he left his position, they would have lost the apartment, so they stayed put. “I got pretty severely anxious and depressed,” the wife says. “I didn’t take to living underground well. I felt sad for my kids, too. They couldn’t run around outside and have me see them.”

One family of four with a preschooler and a toddler leased a two-bedroom basement apartment because living at ground level would have cost another $1,000 to $1,500 a month. Mold grew everywhere— “fuzzy like a sweater on the slats of the bed frame,” the wife says. The tiles in the always-wet bathroom were blackened.

It’s not just the ones struggling to hang on who pay a price. Every economic level ends up directly affected. According to Brian Sullivan, chair of Nantucket’s Affordable Housing Trust, 15 percent of the fire department lives off island because they can’t afford housing here. “They come over and they work a 24-hour shift,” he says. “Then they go home. If there are two emergency situations, the department can’t just call somebody into work. And we can’t call the community next door. The community next door is a boat ride away.”

Other vital services, including medical care, take a hit as well. The housing situation on island makes it “more difficult to recruit,” says Nantucket Cottage Hospital president Amy Lee. The entire state of Massachusetts is suffering a shortage of nurses and radiology and surgical technicians, she reports. But Nantucket is at a particular kind of disadvantage because of the lack of affordable housing. “That is a reality,” she comments. Some 34 positions also remain unfilled in the school department, about 20 of them teacher positions from kindergarten through high school and the rest teaching assistant and custodian vacancies, says superintendent of schools Elizabeth Hallett. Housing for teachers currently on staff sometimes comes in the form of rentals offered by those who own summer homes and are not here during the school year, she says. “We’re grateful for the 10-month housing,” Hallett remarks, but Nantucket’s teachers need “affordable housing and year-round housing. It’s really hard when you want someone to become part of the community as a teacher, and they come for 10 months but then have to leave when it’s the most beautiful time on the island and there are opportunities to get to know people in a different way.”

Beyond the school department, the town, which also employs police officers, firefighters, airport workers and people in many other municipal positions, is actively recruiting to fill 58 more vacancies. Again, the shortfall is all too easy to understand.

A recent survey filled out by more than 350 town employees indicated that as many as 1 in 2 is housing-cost burdened, with

1 in 4 respondents reporting an “extreme” housing cost burden, meaning that more than 50 percent of their gross income goes to keeping a roof over their heads. A patchwork of organizations has worked to ease the crisis. For instance, Housing Nantucket has created 32 affordable year-round rental units over the last 20 years and 113 homes for ownership. And just in the last four years, the Affordable Housing Trust has facilitated the creation of 35 rental units. “We’re marching on the path toward the 490 affordable units required by the state,” Holland says. “We’re currently at 332.” This will continue to improve because from 2019 to 2022, Nantucket voters appropriated an unprecedented $67 million toward housing at Town Meeting, and this year approved a permanent annual $6.5 million allocation for housing funds. If a vote at Town of year-round housing, both rentals and owned properties, that the island needs to house not just town employees but also shopkeepers and others who make Nantucket a sustainable community. “We’re never going to be able to get there at this pace,” he says.

Fortunately, there are solutions in the offing— although one of them is a maybe. Legislators at the State House are considering passing a law that allows a municipality to levy a transfer fee when a home sells for more than $2 million. For any amount above the first $2 million, a tax of half of 1 percent would go into a housing fund. “Had we had it in place last year,” Holland says, “we would have had another $6 million to make housing attainable for year-rounders. Over time, that could be hundreds of millions more.” Other communities have joined in the clamor for this new law. “Chatham, Brookline, Provincetown, Concord, every town on the Vineyard, they all want something similar,” Holland says. “So there’s some momentum.”

But it’s by no means a done deal. “The chances for passage are 50/50,” says Affordable Housing Trust chair Sullivan. “It has been going

Meeting next spring allows that yearly money to be bonded (that is, used to borrow larger sums), it can pave the way for a loan of as much as $100 million to create yet more units of attainable yearround housing.

Still, the recent infusion of cash is far from a magic wand. “The problem is that we have a $500 million challenge,” Holland says. It’s going to take that much to build the roughly 2,000 units on for seven years. Realtor association lobbyists, a strong group, are fighting a fee because they don’t want to see a new tax related to real estate.”

Sullivan, himself a Realtor on island, says, “I can no longer profit in this real estate market without this being part of the solution.”

Others on island also want to see a transfer fee for the sale of houses over $2 million. The island’s Advisory Committee of Non-Voting Taxpayers, made up of seasonal residents who often have significant real estate holdings, has written to the Select Board on more than one occasion to voice its support, even though the fee would be paid by them should they go to sell (unlike the 2 percent Land Bank transfer fee, which is paid by the buyer). Says the committee’s immediate past chair, Gary Beller, “Nantucket is really a magical island. But the working folks who are in the normal day-to-day jobs of running businesses—plumbers, carpenters, store owners, restaurateurs—they need to have some subsidy from the town in order to bridge the gap between people who are able to afford housing easily and those who are not.”

Another piece of the affordable housing solution is a done deal. A new nonprofit, the Nantucket Land Trust, was founded this summer for the express purpose of creating housing

Nantucket is really a magical island. But the working folks who are in the normal day-to-day jobs of running businesses—plumbers, carpenters, store owners, restaurateurs—they need to have some subsidy from the town in order to bridge the gap between people who are able to afford housing easily and those who are not.

– Gary Beller

that is attainable for middle class year-round residents. It works in a few different ways. First, if someone wants to sell their home but make it affordable for those in the year-round community, they can offer it to the trust for less than market value. Such a decision does not have to mean actually giving up any money. If a home is worth, say, $2 million, percent of the island is in the hands of conservation organizations, and that does not include town-owned land. Less than 4 percent of the island is developable today.” Because the land doesn’t exist to build all the affordable housing necessary, turning existing housing stock into affordable real estate for year-rounders in perpetuity is a practical way to help fill in the gap.

“Thirty years ago, the proverbial fireman or teacher could come here and afford a house for a couple hundred thousand dollars on Hooper Farm Road,” making a donation to a nonprofit, the next year-rounder will be able to move in, and Nantucket won’t keep experiencing what Holland calls “a drain of people that the island needs.”

The tax breaks alone won’t cut it; contributions directly to the trust will most definitely be needed, too. “Solving the island’s housing crisis is only going to happen with people’s largesse,” Sullivan says. “We need massive funding” to make it happen.

Holland agrees. “There’s no silver bullet,” he comments. “One single approach isn’t going to be able to do everything. But an IRS-approved “bargain sale” to the nonprofit trust at something along the lines of $1.2 to $1.4 million might confer a tax advantage in the form of a write-off. Sellers can work through the numbers with their tax advisors to see if it would work for them. If it does, the house, now in the trust’s hands, becomes more affordable to the next buyer. For example, if the house and land together now cost $1.4 million, the trust can sell just the home to the new buyer for something along the lines of $800,000 to $900,000. Once the home passes into new hands, it remains available in perpetuity to households not earning more than 240 percent of the annual median income—$136,000 in 2023.

The creation of the new trust is a critical step, Holland says, because “we can’t entirely build our way out of the housing problem by creating new residences. Fifty-three

Holland says. “Now they’re retiring. They want to be closer to the kids and grandkids in North Carolina. When they go to sell, their $200,000 home is now worth $2 million. The new fireman and teacher coming in behind them can’t afford that.” But if the retirees sell their home to the Nantucket Land Trust and take advantage of the tax write-off for

Gary Beller

the Nantucket Land Trust helps fill in a couple of missing pieces that we need in order to move faster to sustain a vibrant community.”

Seasonal islander/homeowner

Rick Hohlt puts sustaining the community like this: “I’m 75. I want an ambulance driver who can afford to live here so he’ll show up when I have a medical emergency.”

For more information on the newly formed Nantucket Land Trust, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, go to nantucketlandtrust.org.

784 Grant Requests

691

Grants Funded

92 Organizations Supported 2002 Initiation of Grant Program

$1MM Largest Grant/ The Nantucket Boys and Girls Club

Organizations receiving NCGF grants in 2022

A Safe Place

Addiction Solutions of Nantucket

Artists Association

Bulgarian Education Center

Egan Maritime Institute

Fairwinds

Friends of Nantucket Public Schools

Harvey Foundation

Health Imperatives-Nantucket

Inky Santa Toy Drive

Maria Mitchell Association

NAMI Cape Cod, Inc.

Nantucket Atheneum

Nantucket Book Foundation

Nantucket Boys & Girls Club

Nantucket Comedy Festival

Nantucket Community Music Center

Nantucket Community Sailing

Nantucket Community School

Nantucket Community Television

Nantucket Cottage Hospital

Nantucket Dreamland Foundation

Nantucket Film Foundation

Nantucket Flying Association

Nantucket Historical Association

Nantucket Ice

Nantucket Island Little League

Nantucket Lighthouse School

Nantucket New School

Nantucket Resource Partnership

Nantucket Student Lacrosse

Nantucket Student Soccer

Nantucket Swim Team Boosters (Dolphins)

New England Life Flight

Our House Nantucket

Rising Tide Preschool

Small Friends On Nantucket

Strong Wings

Sustainable Nantucket

Theatre Workshop of Nantucket

Through the generous support of the members of Nantucket Golf Club, their guests and others, the Nantucket Golf Club Foundation has raised over $40 million over the last 21 years for the benefit of Nantucket youth. Thank you!

Originating in 2006, the Nantucket Scholar Program provides full four-year scholarships for two Nantucket High School seniors each year.

In 2018, the NGCF expanded its support to Nantucket students by assisting those continuing their vocational studies beyond high school.

2023 Nantucket Scholars Scholarship Programs

Ellie Kinsella

Northeastern University

Boston, MA

Wes Thornewill Boston University Boston, MA

2023 Vocational Scholarship Recipients

Jack Billings

School Attending: Wentworth Institute of Technology (MA)

Specific Field of Study: Construction Management

Edenilson Chacon

School Attending: Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Tech. (MA)

Specific Field of Study: Practical Electricity

Samuel Cristler

School Attending: University of Mississippi

Specific Field of Study: Sports Administration

James Cronin

School Attending: Massachusetts College of Art

Specific Field of Study: Illustration

Stella Glowacki

School Attending: Massachusetts College of Art

Specific Field of Study: Illustration and Communication Design

Hunter Gross

School Attending: ECAM Lasalle (Lyon, France)

Specific Field of Study: Mechanical and Electrical Engineering

Maddux Hinson

School Attending: Maine College of Art

Specific Field of Study: Photography

Evan Keeler

School Attending: Johnson & Wales University (RI)

Specific Field of Study: Culinary Arts

Colin Lynch

School Attending: Wentworth Institute of Technology (MA)

Specific Field of Study: Civil Engineering

Sara Marshall

School Attending: Clemson University (SC)

Specific Field of Study: Nursing

Sean Murphy

School Attending: University of Miami (FL)

Specific Field of Study: Sports Management

Olivia Scott

School Attending: Simmons University (MA)

Specific Field of Study: Nursing-Pediatrics

Luke Stringer

School Attending: Massachusetts Maritime Academy

Specific Field of Study: Marine Transportation

Nathalia Tobar

School Attending: Cape Cod Community College (MA)

Specific Field of Study: Nursing-Infusion Therapy

Gabriel Zinser

School Attending: Belmont University (TN)

Specific Field of Study: Music Performance

36 Nantucket Scholars since 2006

42

Vocational Scholarships since 2018

52 Institutions of Higher Education Attended

2006 Initiation of Scholarship Program