When a Nantucket family needs to earn more than $800,000 annually to purchase a median-priced home, we need all hands on deck, Housing Nantucket Executive Director Anne Kuszpa said. At today’s median home price of $3.53 million, homeownership is out of reach not only for low-income households, but for much of the island’s middle-income workforce as well. The status quo is no longer sustainable.

“People care deeply about the island,” Kuszpa said. “This is the number-one issue facing Nantucket. Everybody needs employees for their business to succeed, so across all sectors, housing is something that is a pillar of all of it. We need more quality housing for the economy to continue to function.”

Housing Nantucket, which was founded in 1994, has provided opportunities for affordable rentals and homeownership for everyone from tradespeople to nonprofit employees, teachers and firefighters. They own and manage 64 rental units, along with 13 apartments on behalf of Nantucket Education Trust and the 125 covenant homes that have been created across the island. While Housing Nantucket’s impact continues to grow, the demand for year-round housing continues to outpace the available supply, making housing one of the greatest challenges facing nearly every business, nonprofit and public institution on Nantucket.

As more and more organizations work together to tackle the problem, Housing Nantucket is expanding its initiatives to keep Nantucket’s working year-round community on the island. Last fall, the organization hired Dave Armanetti, who had previously managed the mixed-use redevelopment of the former Glowacki property off Old South Road, as its first-ever director of real estate development. A renewed focus is to work even more proactively with local property owners who have a secondary or tertiary dwelling—or even just land—to donate or sell for affordable year-round housing.

“We have to be more entrepreneurial and more creative because the math is getting more difficult,” Armanetti said. “Costs are going up and interest rates have not come back down as much as people have hoped, and available land is more scarce and expensive than ever, so it’s getting even more difficult to produce housing, even with substantial subsidy contributions.”

“New construction is a major part of the equation. But it’s not the only solution. More and more, addressing the housing crisis has become a matter of collaborating across a number of organizations to find more creative solutions.”

Housing Nantucket Executive Director Anne Kuszpa and Director of Real Estate Development Dave Armanetti at the organization’s 75 Old South Road headquarters, where construction will soon begin on three new affordable apartments for year-round residents.