A Prescription for Housing
Nantucket Cottage Hospital On-site Housing Campaign
Written by Brian Bushard
Photography by Kit Noble
No matter how good the bricks and mortar or how sophisticated the equipment it houses, a hospital cannot function without the staff within it. Nantucket Cottage Hospital, like many institutions on the island, has been suffering from the high cost of housing and lack of available units for its employees—a limiting factor in attracting necessary talent for all aspects of its operation. This month, Nantucket Cottage Hospital is launching a major funding campaign to help solve that critical problem, which has already resulted in unexpected departures from its staff. Like many organizations on the island, the hospital has employee housing, something essential for its survival.
But with 250-plus full-time staff members and an additional 40 part-time summer employees, its current housing only scratches the surface. “We are at an inflection point where we risk losing essential personnel because of the housing crisis on Nantucket,” Nantucket Cottage Hospital President Amy Lee said. “Creating more housing for our staff is not optional but is essential.” Nantucket Cottage Hospital Board Chairman Bruce A. Percelay added: “If we don’t act decisively to produce dedicated housing for the hospital, it will most certainly risk the quality of care that we provide for the island."
The hospital plans to raise $50 million to build a 26-unit housing complex as well as a rehabilitation center on land formerly owned by the University of Massachusetts behind Holdgate’s Laundry on Vesper Lane. According to a design by Boston-based Linea 5, the project will feature fully furnished one-bedroom apartments, designed for short or medium-term stays for visiting specialists, traveling nurses, traveling technicians and doctors on rotation from Mass General Hospital in Boston.
The new housing development also frees up the hospital’s existing housing units, which to this point have been used for both long-term employees and seasonal and traveling staff members, including traveling techs, visiting specialists and rotating doctors. The idea is that those units can now be designated for long-term employees, while seasonal staff members can use the new on-site units. “On an island where the strength of our community is measured in housing insecurity, building homes for our caregivers is not a luxury but a lifeline,” Lee said. “Investing in our talented workforce through stable, affordable staff housing prevents the almost daily crisis we face at the hospital. Without it, we simply cannot sustain the round-the clock care our community and visitors deserve.”
Nantucket’s acute housing shortage is not for lack of trying. The town has appropriated over$84 million for affordable housing in recent years, largely for workforce rental units. Organizations like Housing Nantucket have provided rental and ownership opportunities for year-round islanders, while nonprofits and for-profit businesses have by-and-large maintained staff because of employee housing.
But even with those efforts, the need for more housing still far outpaces the number of units available on the island. For renters competing on the open market, a one-bedroom apartment typically goes for over $3,000 per month—and sometimes well over that price—according to multiple real estate agents. Meanwhile, homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for working families, with the median price of a Nantucket home skyrocketing from $1.58 million 10 years ago to a staggering $3.7million last year. At the hospital, the prognosis is as simple as creating staff housing or suffering losses to its staff. According to Percelay: “The investment in housing is an investment in preserving the quality of healthcare on Nantucket, and as costly as it is, our goal is to reduce our dependency on the market, and control our own destiny.”
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