Darren Mancha has worked on Martha’s Vineyard for nearly 25 years and has always dreamed of owning a home here.
A 38-year-old drywaller who rents a garage apartment in Edgartown, Mr. Mancha makes a good salary and has steady work, but he is among a number of Islanders who are now being cast as the “missing middle,” a growing segment of residents who earn too much to be eligible for affordable housing, but not nearly enough to afford a home on the Island.
The housing crisis on the Vineyard grows worse every year. The possibility of low-income families to make a life here has all but vanished, and, in recent years, even Islanders who make six figures have few options. This missing middle cohort extends to all facets of life on the Vineyard, from teachers to small business owners, from construction workers and all manner of trades, to town officials.
Police departments, fearing a future where $100,000 starting salaries may not be enough to keep officers on Island, are considering adding bunkrooms to their departments, teachers often have to move off-Island for the summer to save money, and people like Mr. Mancha are wondering if they will ever find stability here.
“I feel a sense of hopelessness,” said Mr. Mancha. “If I lived off-Island, I would probably be able to find something affordable. On the Island, it’s damn near impossible.”
On the Vineyard, people in the missing middle have incomes that are too high for traditional affordable housing projects, but don’t come close to heights needed to afford a home on the Island, where the median home sale price in 2024 reached a new peak of $1.6 million. The cohort has been drawing more attention from housing advocates and lawmakers in recent years as home prices continue to climb.
“There’s no question that the missing middle has expanded as the cost of housing has gone over $1.2 million,” said Victor Capoccia, the chair of the Tisbury affordable housing committee.
Recent figures in Island housing reports lay out the sizable gap between the cost of a home and what Islanders can afford, even for families bringing in more than $150,000 annually.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission looked at the median cost of a home in each town and compared it to what a three-person household making about $168,000 — or 150 per cent of the area median income — could buy when spending no more than 30 per cent of their total income. The gap for the county was $610,500, ranging from $391,000 in Tisbury at the low-end, to $1.1 million in Aquinnah at the high-end.
This gaping hole has raised alarms.
“This shows that even middle-income households are being shut out of the private housing market, including workers who support critical infrastructure of community services and public safety,” a 2024 commission housing report concluded.
Addressing the missing middle has increasingly become a target for housing advocates, though much of the priority still remains on the lower incomes, which still make up a majority of the need, officials say.
“Neither have access and they both deserve it and both need help in a legitimate way,” Mr. Capoccia said.
Last year, Gov. Maura Healey’s Affordable Housing Act gave the Vineyard, Nantucket and potentially other seasonal communities the ability to develop housing for municipal employees, many of whom may not otherwise qualify for affordable housing. The new law also allowed towns to establish year-round housing trust funds that could be dedicated towards not only affordable housing, but to what’s now being referred to as “attainable housing.”
Here on the Vineyard, Island rental assistance programs have raised their earning caps to catch a broader range of residents in need. Oak Bluffs now allows assistance for people earning up to 120 per cent of the area median income, and the Dukes County Housing Authority this summer raised its cap to 100 per cent, up from 80 per cent.
Most of the Vineyard’s subsidized housing units, in line with the current need, are dedicated to people making below 80 per cent of the area median income. The state considers projects at 80 per cent or under as affordable housing, and higher percentages are categorized as community housing.
Island Housing Trust, the main developer of affordable housing on the Vineyard, said that of its 90 rentals and 76 ownership units, 70 per cent are dedicated to the lower incomes.
Philippe Jordi, the CEO of Island Housing Trust, said that funding at the state, local and federal level is often restricted to the lower income level, making it harder to pay for the community housing units.
“The cost of construction has increased so much that it’s really challenging to make those numbers work now,” Mr. Jordi said. “It’s really tough and it’s not getting any easier.”
There are several projects in the works on the Vineyard that are targeting the missing middle.
Green Villa, a 100-plus unit Oak Bluffs proposal from developer William Cumming, is aimed at serving earners between 80 and 150 per cent of the area median income.
Katama Meadows, a planned subdivision off Meeting House Way, is in the midst of a new design for a project that would designate lots for people making between 80 and 250 per cent of the area median income. The change came at the request of Edgartown housing officials, who wanted to see more efforts for people in the higher income brackets.
Both those proposals have received significant backlash for their size and locations, however. If approved, Green Villa would be one of the largest ever housing development on the Island, and Katama Meadows has drawn concern from conservationists who worry about its potential to harm the area’s water quality.
One project, though, has been praised by several town leaders as an innovative way to help the missing middle.
Walking Man Close, a private project put forward by attorney Rob McCarron, is developing nine community lots, one affordable duplex and five market-rate lots on the property of the late Edgartown selectman Jean Hathaway. The community lots are for people earning up to 220 per cent of the area median income.
Mr. McCarron said the idea for the development along Jernegan Pond in Edgartown has been percolating for more than a decade. As a real estate attorney, he has seen young people selling off their property and leaving the Island, and he specifically wanted to create something that could help people in the higher income brackets, such as carpenters, teachers, medical workers and emergency responders.
“I think it’s hugely important that we have a community that is stratified in socio-economics,” he said. “The whole spectrum.”
The people picked for the lots will have to build their own houses there, a strategy that was often used for Islanders of Mr. McCarron’s generation.
“We all got a start by buying something we could just barely afford and figuring out how to build a house,” he said.
While he could have done entirely market-rate homes, Mr. McCarron said that factoring in the potential public backlash and limitations that could have been imposed on a such a project, the earnings from the community-focused development are comparable.
The owners for the community lots have been picked and include two Edgartown town employees. Town administrator James Hagerty hoped it could spur more private developers to consider similar projects.
“I think that opened a lot of eyes for how successful the missing middle [projects] can be,” he said.
While private developers consider their options, towns are eyeing several ways to help keep missing middle residents and others in need of assistance on the Vineyard.
Starting this summer, Chilmark is embarking on a pilot program that offers cash incentives to homeowners who convert their properties into long-term rentals for year-round workers. The idea is to help cover the difference between what homeowners could make in the vacation rental market, said Peter Cook, the chair of the affordable housing committee.
“It’s a way of using [the] existing housing stock that hasn’t really been done before,” he said. “It’s a big step forward.”
Provincetown and Nantucket have implemented similar plans, which have also been used in western U.S. ski towns that deal with similar issues.
Purchasing year-round deed restrictions on homes is also gaining traction among housing advocates as a way to ensure properties don’t leave for the vacation rental market. Under this model, towns could purchase deed restrictions on homes — similar to how Massachusetts allows conservation restrictions — that would prohibit properties from being used for short-term rentals. Under the convenants, future owners or tenants would need to be year-round residents.
But each plan takes time, and many fear the community has already begun to be hollowed out, with some essential services at risk of being filled entirely by commuters from the mainland.
Oak Bluffs police Chief Jonathan Searle has long been voicing concerns about the next generation and he is already bracing for the potential of a force made up of off-Island officers.
Depending on their experience, Oak Bluffs officers can start with salaries close to if not above $100,000 a year, not counting overtime and payment for details. But Chief Searle has seen several officers have to leave the Island.
“[Officers] had no possibility of purchasing a home and what they were paying for a garage apartment or basement was equivalent to a mortgage,” Chief Searle said. “The fear moving forward is the prices have only increased since then.”
The town is considering what to do with its aging police station near the Steamship terminal, and Chief Searle said that potential new plans include bunks for commuting officers.
He worried that if the Island continues to have constant turnover in policing, the schools and the hospital, it could leave Islanders lacking much-needed services.
“Who is going to fill that void,” he said. “That’s what needs to be looked at.”
While the missing middle grows in priority, some say the Vineyard also needs to remain focused on helping the lower to moderate wage earners.
During a hearing for the Cat Hollow development, an Island Housing Trust project in Vineyard Haven that has an equal mix of affordable, community and year-round units with no income limits, several members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission said they would vote in favor, but had reservations.
“I will vote yes, but I believe... it’s the very low income, the 65 per cent [annual median income] that we need,” commissioner Michael Kim said during the July deliberations.
David Vigneault, the executive director for the Dukes County Housing Authority, said he understands the push for missing middle, but in his experience he sees far more applications for the lower income rentals on the Island.
“I think that everybody is correct in discussing and planning for an actuality that is coming down the pike,” he said. “In this office’s experience to date, it is not the current reality that those folks are showing up in any great numbers for rentals....I think the narrative is slightly ahead of the actuality on the ground.”
For Islanders caught in the middle, though, help is needed now.
Amy Westburg, a teacher in the Island public school system, has lived in more than 20 rentals in Woods Hole and on the Vineyard over the past 20 years. She said she earns too much to qualify for most affordable housing, leaving her stuck in the Island shuffle.
Another teacher, who asked not to be named for fear of it hurting her future housing prospects, said she and her husband are shut out of affordable housing opportunities because their dual income puts them over the earnings level. But the couple has not been able to compete in the open housing market.
“With two incomes, we are overqualified for that, but entirely not in the realm of getting a house,” the teacher said.
So, every summer, the couple leaves their Vineyard winter rental to couch surf with family off-Island until the school year begins.
Mr. Mancha, the drywaller in Edgartown, said that while working on homes he will never be able to afford, he often thinks about whether he can afford to stay on the Vineyard long-term. He knows the housing market on Nantucket has reached even more extreme heights, and wonders if that’s what is in store for the Vineyard.
“I always joke, we are turning into Nantucket,” he said. “Is that what the Island wants?”
Editor's note: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated the type of units in the Cat Hollow project. It has been corrected.
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