PROVINCETOWN — The regional housing crisis is also a health-care crisis. At a June 30 roundtable with top state health officials, social service providers from the Outer, Lower, and Mid-Cape had one overriding message: housing above all else is hindering their ability to field staff and stabilize clients.
Mass. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kate Walsh made the trip here with Dept. of Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein, who is a part-time resident of Provincetown. State Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro and state Rep. Sarah Peake of Provincetown were also present.
Both legislators emphasized the rarity of the trip. “I don’t think the secretary of health and human services has ever made an official visit to Provincetown,” Peake said.
Walsh independently brought up housing early in the discussion, launching a flood of affirmation and comments about the sector’s unlivable wage standards.
Dan Gates, CEO of the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod, said it’s increasingly difficult for his 30 year-round employees to live on the Cape. Gates also said the organization has increased salaries by 30 percent in the past year to “pay livable wages that are ethically sound.”
“I didn’t think I was going to learn so much about housing two years ago,” said Kim McElholm, CEO of Cape Abilities.
Stephanie Daugherty of Bay Cove Human Services in Hyannis, which provides emergency mental health response across the Cape, said she has also struggled to secure crucial staff because of housing.
“We were trying to hire two psychiatrists that Cape Cod desperately needed, and they pulled out because they couldn’t find a place to live,” she said. “We had two other staff that were on the verge of moving back to where they were from because they were staying in hotels and campgrounds and couldn’t find housing. It’s a huge, huge barrier for us.”
Homeless Prevention Council CEO Hadley Luddy emphasized that health and housing are inextricably linked for clients themselves. “It is dehumanizing and health adverse to not be stably housed,” she said.
Damian Archer of Outer Cape Health Services spoke of his organization’s staffing shortage. “Nobody’s coming,” he said. “That’s how it feels. And what makes it even worse is that, as people leave, it adds even more stress to an extremely stressed-out workforce. But if nobody’s coming, what else can we do to meet needs and retain people in a sustainable way?” Support for innovation and experimentation is required, he said, pointing to the rise of telehealth services during the pandemic as an example.
Housing “is the biggest issue on Beacon Hill right now,” Sen. Cyr said. “The good news is this is a train that’s leaving the station.” He said that the Cape delegation at the State House is “working hard on certain things like a transfer fee on luxury real estate that could help us fund workforce housing.” But he also pointed to the importance of voting in local elections — such as in Truro and Wellfleet, where housing coordinator positions passed at town meeting but not at the ballot box.
Rep. Peake also brought up the lack of regionalization in Mass. governance — a rarely discussed snag for housing development across the state. “This may be heresy, but we are 351 siloes in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” she said to Secretary Walsh. “We have hundreds of units in the pipeline that are taking years longer and costing millions of dollars more because of convoluted local approvals. If we want to be bold, we need to look at regionalization,” Peake said.
