PROVINCETOWN — When eight longtime employees of Marine Specialties owner Patrick Patrick arrived back on Cape Cod from Jamaica in 2019, their housing had fallen through.  After a fruitless search, all eight wound up moving in with Patrick’s parents for the summer — a fairly typical roommate situation, except everyone was middle-aged or older.

The next summer, Patrick did what dozens of Cape Cod employers have done to ensure their staff could live where they work: he entered the housing market, both paying rent to a landlord and collecting rent from his employees.

“Sometimes, it’s a little messy if you’re the employer and the landlord,” Patrick said. “I encourage businesses to keep that separate.”

The agreements that sustain employer-assisted housing here range from informally negotiated case-by-case deals to entire buildings owned and professionally managed for employee living. As more employers move to secure housing in a region with few affordable alternatives, more workers will come to depend on businesses for both their wages and their homes.

Losing a job means losing a home, too.

When the Boss Is the Landlord

Employer-assisted or employer-owned housing agreements are not new. They began in the U.S. as company towns around mines or railroad construction sites in the 19th century. Now, they are becoming common again in cities with steep housing prices. On Cape Cod, many businesses are ahead of the curve.

Todd Barry, the owner of Moby Dick’s restaurant in Wellfleet, has been providing and maintaining employee housing for three decades, buying enough property to house the company’s seasonal workers in houses and cottages near or right next to his restaurant.

Barry charges each tenant $162 per week for every week that they work. That includes utilities, laundry, linens, and a full kitchen in each apartment. If employees leave their units as they found them, said Barry, Moby Dick’s issues them a $25-per-week refund. The housing agreement is separate from pay, but it sweetens the deal for younger workers who would otherwise be on their own to find housing.

Barry maintains the properties himself along with his wife, Mignon, and a handyman, repairing doors and sinks when the restaurant is closed in the winter. He said the housing arrangement is what allows the restaurant to recruit a full staff and cover every shift for the season.

“The season is short enough,” he said. “I don’t want to lose a lunch, a dinner, a day.”

His tenants can’t smoke or light candles or have overnight guests. The arrangement is advertised on the restaurant’s website.

Most business owners, however, said their housing agreements vary from employee to employee.

John Yingling, owner of Spiritus Pizza and Bubala’s by the Bay in Provincetown also owns two properties that house about 15 seasonal employees. “You make different deals with everybody,” he said. “I have people who I supply housing for, and I have people who pay rent.”

Yingling has some employees who lease from him year-round and others who work on short or seasonal contracts with less formal agreements. While some of his employees have found their own housing in the past, Yingling said there are few options now. “We work it out however we can,” he said. “It got progressively worse and worse here, as housing does.”

Others provide housing but keep the specifics of the agreement private. A spokesperson for Stop & Shop, which also arranges housing for some of its employees, declined to give the Independent details so as to “maintain the integrity of our program and privacy of our associates.”

‘An Ongoing Battle’

Five employers who spoke to the Independent about their housing agreements with employees said they made little or no money in the housing market. Some employers rent the units at a loss to keep their businesses staffed.

“There is absolutely no profit in housing,” said Mac Hay, the owner of Mac’s Seafood.

Hay also owns the Cape View Motel in Truro and properties in Wellfleet where he houses about 125 seasonal workers at his 10 restaurants and markets on the Outer and Lower Cape. He said the daily upkeep of the properties requires significant time, and he does it out of necessity.

“It’s an ongoing battle,” Hay said. “Toilets, sinks, faucets, showers — you name it.”

Patrick said his current agreement with his employees costs him money because he charges less than what he pays in rent. “Sometimes they don’t have the resources to pay up front,” he said. “I think some landlords would much rather rent to an employer.”

Because it is Patrick who signs the lease, he is liable for his employees’ conduct. He is responsible for rent and damages and can ask the employee, a subtenant, to move out of the property.

“It’s sometimes cleaner that way because we are paying the financial part of the obligation,” said Hay, who also said his business handles the lease agreements with landlords. “We are trying to keep the rents as absolutely low as possible while still trying to stay in business.”

Avoiding the Lease

But just because an employee lives in an apartment owned or rented by her boss does not automatically make her a tenant. And the employer has an incentive to keep it that way.

“The employer is concerned about having a landlord-tenant relationship with the employee,” said Robert Nislick, a Massachusetts lawyer who specializes in real estate law and landlord-tenant practice.

Under a traditional tenancy, either with a lease or at will, a tenant cannot be evicted until the end of the lease or with at least 30 days’ notice. That poses a problem for employers who want to replace staff quickly and need their apartments free to do so.

Nislick said employers are better off signing a license, which may have less legal protection from eviction for employees and likely exempt the renter from the proper notice laws that exist for tenants.

“In theory, they would have the ability to make them leave sooner,” Nislick said, nevertheless warning employers to exercise caution. “They have to be aware they can’t just throw someone out.”

According to Nislick, the laws are adapting slowly to the increasing prevalence of such agreements. “There is a lot of undeveloped law on the subject,” he said.

Every business owner interviewed by the Independent said that because housing is a benefit of employment, renters must leave if they are fired. “If someone loses their job, they are required to move out of their housing,” Hay said. “We try to work with them to relocate.”

All also said they try to avoid such cases by hiring the same seasonal workers every year or finding new staff through the recommendations of other employees. “I haven’t really been in that situation,” Yingling said.

Employee Dorms

As more businesses attempt to secure housing for their employees, Patrick is following the lead of rural resort towns to develop a large dormitory for workers in Provincetown.

The dorm, a complex called “the Barracks,” will collect fees from employers as well as rent from their employees. Patrick said it will turn a profit by renting competitively and allowing employers to avoid buying and managing property themselves.

A similar project already exists for employee housing in Dennis for workers at the Pelham House Resort, which rents units to employees on a subtenant basis. According to the company’s website, “it is the employer’s sole discretion how they handle the payment with their employee.” Although separate companies, the Pelham House Resort and the “Living Lighthouse” workforce dorm are owned by the same family.

“Their work is tied to their living, and their living is tied to their work,” said Pelham Hospitality managing partner John McCarthy.

A year and a half before Patrick expects to open the Barracks at 207 Route 6, he said 65 percent of the rooms have already been reserved by businesses for their employees. The dorm will have room for about 130 people.

“Any business that has more than two or three employees is looking at how to get staff,” Patrick said. “The problem is usually, ‘How do we make sure our staff has housing so they can work here?’ ”