AN ARTIST who inhabited a barn loft with no bathroom or kitchen last summer traded her hand-crafted jewellery in exchange for a guest room this season. A middle-aged farm worker stored his belongings and moved into his 1987 Dodge truck on a friend's wooded property.
A twenty- something who came here to earn money working part-time and to party with friends is shelling out $600 a month to live in a backyard tool shed. And the local hospital's chief executive officer, whose salary exceeds $150,000, is moving off-island until his new home is finished because even he doesn't want to pay an exorbitant weekly summer rent.
"It's a nightmare," said Beth McElhiney, 36, a jewellery and textile artisan who, for four years, has shuttled from lodging to lodging here on this island seven miles off the Massachusetts coast. "It's not like I cannot afford to pay rent. It's not like it's only a housing situation that is affecting the really poor. It's just that there is nothing available, and nobody will rent year-round, so you're constantly moving every six to eight months," she said. "We're all so frantically desperate to find the next place to live."
'Vineyard Shuffle'
President Clinton surely never glimpses this side of Martha's Vineyard from his rarefied summer circuit of dinner parties and golf games. In the housing dance known as the Vineyard Shuffle, a majority of islanders who are able to rent homes at reasonable prices during the winter are forced to make other arrangements as thousands of moneyed vacationers sashay in for the summer season.
People here count on tourist dollars to sustain the predominantly resort economy of the island, now ranked the seventh-most popular US travel destination for international tourists. But many say the Vineyard's booming popularity is eroding its bohemian character and taking an increasingly harsh toll on renters who live and work here year-round. There are fewer places to rent or buy. Real estate sales prices have skyrocketed, year-round rentals are virtually unheard of, and the number of seasonal rents within the reach of many residents are dwindling.
From the Los Angeles Times Washington Post News Service
For nearly every summer home advertised for $5,000 a week or $250,000 for the season, there is a classified ad or hand-written flier on a neighbourhood bulletin board seeking housing after June 1, when most winter leases expire and property owners increase rents for the summer crowds. "It's the whole greed thing," said Juleann Van Belle, chairperson of the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority, which initiated an island affordable-housing fund in 1998 and sponsored a packed forum on affordable housing last month.
Martha's Vineyard Hospital, which already owns several houses and a condominium, spent $120,000 to house its staff last summer and is considering building properties for moderate-income workers. Owners of the island's only campground, meanwhile, rented a summer house this year for $10,000 to accommodate eight workers.
Businesses that once turned away summer job applicants are cutting back hours and having difficulty recruiting permanent staff because prospective employees - from minimum-wage cashiers and custodians to salaried professionals - can't afford to live here. Many year-round residents are leaving for good rather than face more house-hunting in the fall and another move next June 1. And those who stay are left wondering how much longer before they, too, will have to hop a ferry back to the mainland. ''
I want there to be a man to put my septic system in, someone to teach my child, repair my car and fix my air conditioning,'' said Ann Milstein, a long-time resident who owns Rainy Day, a gift and housewares store. ''
Where are those people going to live?''
The first question Martha's Vineyard Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash asks job candidates is whether they already have housing. His current pool of applicants has dwindled to about a dozen people from the 40 or so who applied five years ago, when the real estate market was calmer and the Vineyard's profile less glamorous. Even Cash - a former associate dean at Washington's Howard University who will earn $102,000 next year, is married and has a family - is still renting because he can't find anything to buy. "The only people, it seems to me, who can live here now are people who are extremely wealthy to begin with, or people who have been here enough years so that they got into the market early and are land-rich but cash poor. If you're not making six figures, I don't see how you can make it here," he said.
From the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service.
