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Nantucket’s Workers Are Living on the Margins

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As private jets and superyachts arrive on Nantucket for the summer season, full-time residents and government officials are warning that the Massachusetts island must shake up the housing market so that the local work force can afford to live there.

Around 65 percent of the island’s nearly 12,000 housing units are occupied by seasonal residents. The median home price is around $2.5 million, according to data from the local housing agency and an island real estate brokerage.

That leaves little housing for workers on an island where a decades-long divide of the haves and have-nots has reached a tipping point, town leaders say.

A crowd of people stand in line for a ferry outside.

The island town of charming cobblestone streets, lined with shops selling handmade $400 caftans and high-end restaurants offering $50 lobster rolls, is experiencing the same imbalance that has racked other vacation destinations. In Spain, seasonal workers live in tent cities on Ibiza. Day laborers in the Hamptons have formed encampments. In Frisco, Colo., ski instructors, E.R. nurses and others can live in their cars and vans in a parking lot, if they can show proof that they are working in the area.

“Nantucket has 10 years or less before the entire island is owned by island conservation entities or seasonal homeowners,” said Brian Sullivan, 50, who is a principal broker at Fisher Real Estate and has lived on Nantucket for 28 years. Even families living on the island, earning well into six-figures, are struggling to find affordable options.