Elizabeth Warren visits Massachusetts' Martha's Vineyard, where $2.5 million homes price workers out

The people who keep running year-round a Massachusetts island known for multimillion-dollar vacation homes are facing an affordability crisis.

During a visit to Martha's Vineyard, Sen. Elizabeth Warren met with island leaders, business owners, and tribal representatives who said soaring home prices and seasonal rentals are making life increasingly difficult for workers and families, as the Martha's Vineyard Times reported.

Here's what to know

Warren's stop included a tour of workforce housing and a roundtable discussion centered on the island's housing problems, the paper noted. The median home price on Martha's Vineyard has climbed to $2.5 million, and over 60% of homes go unused for most of the year.

She said the trip was also meant to draw attention to the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a sweeping federal housing law that took effect in July, according to the MV Times. The goal of the law is to increase housing supply and reduce development bottlenecks. Warren cast the island's housing problems as part of a wider squeeze.

"My view on this is: It is a really tricky economy," she said, according to the paper. "There's enormous wealth flowing to the top. … We're watching a lot of pressure on 90% of Americans."

The MV Times reported that roundtable participants said the Vineyard's success as a summer destination depends on workers who increasingly cannot afford to live in the community they support.

More background

The housing crisis has already affected daily life, as the paper detailed. Some workers are caught in what locals call the "Island Shuffle," repeatedly moving from one temporary housing arrangement to another as seasonal options dry up. 

Others crowd into shared housing or even live in tents in the woods. Philippe Jordi, executive director and founder of Island Housing Trust, said the island is out of reach for most people.

"We don't have middle-income opportunities anymore," Jordi noted, per the MV Times. "I could never have come here, as I did 30 years ago, and settled down and had a family. It's just not possible anymore."

This also poses major challenges for employers.

"Our biggest pain point is being able to staff our businesses well," Lora Ksieniewicz, who owns Yoga on the Vine in Edgartown, told Warren, according to the paper. "I do find housing to be the biggest factor in why we'll lose staff over time."

For the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), the crisis carries cultural and generational weight.

"These are our ancestral homes, and we're losing our tribal members pretty heavily due to the cost of living here and the housing crisis," said Kevin Devine, chair of the tribal council, per the MV Times. "The millionaires and billionaires are buying us out."

What's being done?

The publication noted Warren highlighted the new federal law as a possible way to relieve the shortage, saying it could help communities add housing more quickly. 

The MV Times reported that she also praised an island housing project she toured near Navigator Homes, an elder care facility, saying the workforce housing effort there could serve as a model far beyond Martha's Vineyard.

At the state level, another proposed approach stalled, the paper said. Cape and Islands state Sen. Julian Cyr introduced transfer fee legislation that would have imposed a 2% levy on real estate sales above $1 million to create a fund for affordable housing initiatives, but the proposal did not move forward in July.

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