Affordable Housing’s Changing Landscape

The Island Affordable Housing Fund is now considering a radical change in direction toward federally-subsidized, high-density rental housing, and last week fund executive director T. Ewell Hopkins described a rough outline of a plan ostensibly to buy three Island properties formerly designated for residential affordable housing and build rental housing instead. There is federal money available for such high-density rental housing projects, Mr. Hopkins said, and a large off-Island development company, The Community Builders, is standing by with an interest in landing a contract for such a project. Community Builders built the Morgan Woods project on the outskirts of Edgartown.

In an interview with the Gazette, Mr. Hopkins said the project would require a change in thinking on the Vineyard about high-density rental housing projects.

It’s not clear what that means since high-density rental housing projects are hardly a stigma on the Island, where a number of such projects have been built through the years. Island Elderly Housing’s Hillside Village in Vineyard Haven, with fifty-five units, and Woodside Village in Oak Bluffs, with ninety-five units, and Morgan Woods in Edgartown, with sixty units developed by the town, are all examples.

With the exception of Morgan Woods, these projects were built with federal money to serve people who are elderly, low and very low income and handicapped.

And as the Island leaders who worked on them over the past thirty years can attest, the federal money was very much available but came with plenty of strings attached and a mass of red tape to untangle. At Aidylberg, another smaller project in Oak Bluffs, and the most recent, with ten units, there ended up being not quite enough money to cover costs, which posed even more problems that had to be solved. So there is no magic bean when it comes to building affordable housing on the Island.

The emphasis clearly is now shifting to the critical need for more decent rental housing here, and that is a good thing. But before rushing headlong into development, careful consideration must be given to matching the type of housing with the need.

High-density rental housing would very likely serve the need for housing among low and very low income people.

There is also a need for moderate income rental housing, but this need may be met in a different way — through the open market, with the assistance of the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority and also through the informal network of people who rent their Island homes to friends, friends of friends and family members for part or all of the year. (This latter segment is to be encouraged — it’s the Island way for people to rent out their guest cottage or garage apartment to an artist, farmer, writer or ecologist who may have been attracted to the rural lifestyle and creative community here.) The so-called micro-projects which involve building small clusters of rental units — one was recently completed at the former Oak Bluffs Library and another will be completed soon at the Chilmark Middle Line property — appear to be a very good model for creating moderate income rental housing on the Island. More of these types of projects are to be encouraged, especially within walking distance of town centers or on central public bus routes, which is the smart-growth concept.

There are many good ideas, all serving as a reminder that the affordable housing problems on the Vineyard have been ongoing for years and are best addressed organically and in grassroots fashion, finely tuned to the needs and culture of the Island. The popular ground-lease approach with subsidized residential housing developed through the partnership between the housing fund and the Island Housing Trust has been a recent success, but with changes in the economy that model appears to be fading for now, except perhaps on a smaller scale with town-sponsored projects.

Another federally-funded program that has been used successfully on the Island is the Self-Help Program, which provides a mortgage subsidy for small groups of people who help each other build their houses on land they own. This so-called sweat equity homeowner program is well-suited to the Island lifestyle of independent living. And then of course there is Habitat for Humanity, the reputable nonprofit sweat-equity affordable home program that has a strong track record for micro-projects on the Island

Meanwhile, despite all the best intentions — and credit goes to Mr. Hopkins for continuing to try to come up with good ideas — there are questions about whether the Island Affordable Housing Fund is in the best position to lead a high-density rental housing development project.

Still saddled with the failed Bradley Square project in Oak Bluffs and owing more than three quarters of a million dollars to the Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank for a mortgage that it has no ability to repay, the housing fund would do well to settle that debt before moving on to other, more ambitious ventures.