Article

2024-06-26 Economy

Affluent island getaway where Obamas enjoy $12M mansion faces a housing crisis so bad it is 'threatening public safety'

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The affluent U.S. island beloved by the Obamas - and favored in summer by hordes of the rich and famous - is facing a housing shortage that has gotten so severe it is 'threatening public safety' for its residents.

Staggering seasonal rents - averaging nearly $1,000 a night - are forcing regular workers, including restaurant, store employees, doctors, correctional officers and 911 dispatchers, to flee their jobs on Martha's Vineyard, amid the lack of affordable housing, officials said.

Sheriff Robert Ogden of Dukes County said the cost of housing has gotten so bad, he now considers it a public safety issue on the island.

Ogden said his department, which oversees 11 islands including Martha's Vineyard, has a staffing need of 11 emergency operators who provide lifesaving 911 instructions and relay to responders by phone - including CPR instructions.

A home in the quaint New England colony just south of Cape Cod can run upwards of $6,500 for a week stay, particularly during the peak summer months. And the mounting problem is that many landlords are more interested in cashing-in on these short-term visitors in place of their year-round working residents.

Posted by Skidmark 2024-06-26 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11144 views ] Top

#1

When was the last time Obama was in Newark.
Or any other LSD ran Metro for a few days and walked around the voters he claims to represent?

Posted by NN2N1 2024-06-26 06:07|| 2024-06-26 06:07|| Front Page Top

#2 Those rich enough to "cash in" on short term visitors at the expense of essential long term workers living nearby can certainly find it in their wealth to come up with a way to house & feed the essential workers. If they can't or won't do that, they can certainly do without those "essential services". When their ancestors had servants decades or centuries ago, they housed and fed them.

Posted by Gromble+Dribble4342 2024-06-26 07:04|| 2024-06-26 07:04|| Front Page Top

#3 /\ When their ancestors had servants decades or centuries ago, they housed and fed them.

Yes, often forgotten; the 'downstairs people' were looked after as well.

Posted by Besoeker 2024-06-26 07:11|| 2024-06-26 07:11|| Front Page Top

#4 Same game in SanFran. Any teenage nerd who has played the city building games knows more about how to run development planning than nearly all commish or managers who can't comprehend the consequence beyond the next 'fix' from developers. You got to have workers and the workers have got to have someplace to live.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-06-26 07:16|| 2024-06-26 07:16|| Front Page Top

#5 When their ancestors had servants decades or centuries ago, they housed and fed them.

When their ancestors had slaves, they had to house and feed them. Today they just get the taxpayers to cover that for them.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-06-26 07:18|| 2024-06-26 07:18|| Front Page Top

#6 White West Virginia couple forced their adopted black children to work as slaves and live in barn

Posted by Skidmark 2024-06-26 07:49|| 2024-06-26 07:49|| Front Page Top

#7 “This is Kunar your heavily accented 911 operator speaking to you from Lahore…”

Posted by Super Hose 2024-06-26 10:16|| 2024-06-26 10:16|| Front Page Top

#8 My mother came from a part of Michigan that grows a lot of cherries. In ye olden times, cherry farms would solicit migrant laborers to pick the crops during the weeks when they were ready. All the old farms had rows of migrant housing - from a distance they looked exactly like dwelling units in an old time motel, with clothes lines and parking in front. Many of the housing units are still there. I don't know what they're now used for, none seems to live there. Migrants would show up in old cars with their families and stay several weeks. In off season the housing was empty. Local school kids would also go and pick cherries, but there were never of them to do the job.
Nowadays they spray the ripe cherry trees with something that makes the cherries more prone to fall off, and use "shakers" that deploy what looks like an inverted umbrella around the trunk of the tree, then a big gripper deploys, grasps the trunk and shakes the tree to bring down the ripe fruit. Interesting process to watch. The "shaking" is hard on the trees and some are damaged each year, but it's not a major problem. Much easier for the farmers than getting all those workers to show up for a few weeks a year.
Places like Martha's Vineyard could simply supply housing for workers they want always there, gratis as part of their employment. But they are too cheap and want taxpayers in other parts of Massachusetts to foot their bills. The state government should not support this at all.
A similar problem exists in Jackson Hole WY. Last I heard the local government provided housing for some staff like the chief of police.

Posted by Gromble+Dribble4342 2024-06-26 13:00|| 2024-06-26 13:00|| Front Page Top

#9 Of course none living in Martha's Vineyard can even imagine paying the 911 operators the extra $6500 a week needed to live there in the summertime. Oh no!

Posted by Gromble+Dribble4342 2024-06-26 13:02|| 2024-06-26 13:02|| Front Page Top

#10 But I was told fed dollars paid for Martha's Vineyard EV charging stations because it is a low income zone.

Posted by swksvolFF 2024-06-26 14:24|| 2024-06-26 14:24|| Front Page Top

#11 #8 I’m guessing you are from the Traverse City area. I’ve gone up that way in summer for most of my life, actually closer to Petoskey. Beautiful part of the world.

Posted by Remoteman 2024-06-26 19:13|| 2024-06-26 19:13|| Front Page Top

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