‘Move to Cape Cod’ bumper sticker riles affordable housing proponents on Nantucket

Affordable housing on Nantucket has been hard to come by as residents contend with eye-watering real estate prices and a scarcity of available units.

May 1, 2023

2 minutes to read

The bumper sticker arrived anonymously at the Nantucket Town And County Building last Wednesday, its inflammatory message touching on the live wire of one of the island’s most hotly debated — and longstanding — issues.

“If you want affordable housing, move to Cape Cod where you belong,” read the sticker, which was addressed to town leaders.

“It really infuriates me,” Nantucket Select Board Chair Jason Bridges said of the sticker’s message.

“I don’t think it’s funny. I’m sure people are trying to goad us. Somebody thinks it’s funny,” Bridges continued, displaying the sticker at the Select Board’s April 26 meeting. “It is insensitive at best, and I just don’t understand why you would think that when there are third-generation Nantucketers that are in affordable housing here and have a family and they’re secure, and safe.”

From grocery stores to post offices and health care providers, housing is a key component that keeps Nantucket’s essential industries running, he asserted.

“Anything you do here, think about if you want to continue to do it — even the little things — because people need to have housing,” Bridges said.

The bumper sticker, first reported by the Nantucket Current, drew condemnation from other Select Board members as well.

This bumper sticker was sent anonymously to the #Nantucket Select Board this week 😡#affordablehousing #CapeCod pic.twitter.com/dInYcx90dy
— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) April 30, 2023

Vice Chair Dawn Hill Holdgate, whose family has lived on the island since the 1970s, noted that the housing crisis affects even lifelong Nantucket residents; for example, she said two of her siblings do not have permanent housing.

“It’s like people do these things in a complete vacuum and don’t put any faces with it,” she said of the bumper sticker.

More on Nantucket housing:

Affordable housing on Nantucket has been hard to come by for years, with a scarcity of available units and eye-watering real estate prices driving out longtime residents and resulting in labor challenges.

According to local nonprofit Housing Nantucket, more than half of the island’s year-round population struggles to pay their housing costs.

“The island’s beauty conveys an image of Nantucket that masks the hardships many households contend with in order to live and work here,” the organization notes on its website. “Nantucket’s expensive homes, limited range of housing, small employment base, and abundance of protected land help to explain its extremes: affluence on one hand, and seasonal workers with very low paying jobs on the other hand.”

Notably, Cape Cod — where the bumper sticker’s anonymous sender would send priced-out Nantucketers — is dealing with a similar housing crisis of its own.

Nantucket Select Board member Brooke Mohr described the island as a caring and diverse community, noting that its diversity also covers various socioeconomic levels.

“We have jobs that range from entry-level pay all the way up to business owners, senior executives,” she said. “And every member of our community — regardless of what they earn — is a valued member of our community.”

Mohr added: “That attitude expressed in that bumper sticker makes me mostly sad that there are still people in our community who feel as though some people in our community somehow should be voted off the island.”