Informal Communities for Change

I'd like you to hold the following idea for a minute or two, and we'll come back to it:
I need a secure bed for myself and my garden.

We Are Here

There is a lot of "we" here on this island, and that's not just a notion. We claim a place. We share proximity. But, I think that word "proximity" is too vague, so is "place." Not enough "people" in those words. "People" is even a little too general. Maybe it's "interactions" or "relationships." But, the annual shark tournament is interactive — in a self-interested sort of way.

So, maybe we call the unifying force that claims "we," that claims us "community." Community is a soft-focussed, collective word. Nonetheless, as different from our "island community," we can have communities of interest: people who like to fish, to dance, to race boats, to raise chickens, build houses.

All this defining is a little too formalistic. Certainly if I went on we'd all get to a point of agreement. But flip that thought: when we agree to share an idea — a notion of community for example — there is actually a shared perspective. In that perspective I'd say there's a form of "joy." 

Nan Doty and I were talking recently. She said, "community comes through us, kind of like grace comes through us." I have to agree. So when we say "Island", and we say "huckleberry" — and countless other sights, sounds, people, places — "we" becomes known.

Now, I know I take the long way around to say that. Sometimes, as Lucinda Williams sings, we enjoy taking the long way home — in this case to perhaps a shared understanding of how people move toward change. It's hard to come right out and say "we often gather in this community through a sense of joy;" that through the joy of a common purpose we arrive in community already here. Often individuals isolated from common purpose or buffeted by "getting by" are limited in their access to community. The sense of common purpose activates an already existing community. We gain place in shared perspective; in our activities "we are here."

It is this fact, the fact that we are here, that surfaces need and calls people to respond. It also often takes the long way home to understand both the character of need and people and community AND what kind of interactions and relationships will coalesce need, people and community into change. Simply, as Zee Gamson says, it is not just the work people do here that matters, (housing, community agriculture, sustainable energy, etc.) but it is also the "community on which the work depends and the communities the work creates."

The Unintentional Community for Change

John Abrams mentions, "at a certain point - two decades ago - it became clear to me that our housing resiliency was gone." The basic capacity to provide affordable housing was withering, and, as you'll see, John and many other people understood this. Some pretty hard facts were telling people that things were changing — in the process a community coalescence was underway. People got together.

"As it relates to the housing issues and development on the Vineyard," says Susan Wasserman, "that subject begs the question of why now or why success here?  I believe that on MV we hit the crest of the wave of public awareness and interest in housing issues.  I don't know exactly how that comes about..."

I bet Susan may not need to know exactly how that comes about. But I think we share the same idea that it has something to do with a kind of awareness, a kind people who recognize the conditions on this island and who began to find a common satisfaction in acting upon that understanding. 

According to Wasserman, "When I invest in the place I live, I have developed long-lasting, important personal friendships with people of all ages as well as positively influencing the quality of life for myself and others.  This brings enormous personal satisfaction."

Maybe in bringing about change and calling attention to challenges "influence" should be defined as "confluence." Like a big river's tributaries, in many ways it's the collected and shared challenge of meeting the resistance in a sluggish, viscous social context that charges and gathers people. The people who met the hard facts of diminished housing capacity shared the understanding of the conditions with others. What is once fluid and amorphous gains momentum and direction.

It seems influence is measured in the decisions people make and the actions they take. That's obvious. But the meaning of influence, the word really means "to flow," is much more fluid than that. I wonder if it really is important that we know exactly how public awareness and interest comes about. Perhaps we cannot entirely.

The measure of decisions in our community is different, kind of like a tide chart. Our decisions and actions flow together in the conversations we have, in the ideas we share, the personal, social and economic forces that shape us. It can get a little fuzzy — relationships tend to blur distinctions. Hard fact sharpen those distinctions. This is where action and joy merge.

Take these facts from an informal survey of houses built on Skiff's Lane, in West Tisbury. In 1979 most of the houses and lots sold, according to RealtyInsite, for $13,500. By 1990 homes on Skiff's Lane were selling for about $180,000. In 2000 comparable homes on Skiff's lane sold for around $310,000. Not too long ago a vacant lot sold for $450,000. Income just didn't keep pace. Housing conditions across the island were similar. Initially, efforts to address these conditions were patchwork of effort. But people learned. 

For people paying attention early on conditions called for some sort of action.  "We did some scattershot efforts at making affordable housing through the eighties and early nineties. Abrams recalls, "But in the mid-nineties, after Derrill [Bazzy] had been at South Mountain Company a few years, we began to put our heads together and say, "Hey, this is something we could do something about. This is a problem we may even be able to solve." Of course Bazzy and Abrams weren't alone.

David Vigneault says, "...In the late 80s and early 90s a lot of effort was put into minimal yield. There were some accomplishments to be sure. Two rounds of “self-help” housing yielded a number of home ownership opportunities. Towns such as Chilmark first began the youth lot program for young town residents. These set the stage for the retention of many young Vineyard families." It was a beginning. Beginning's are good.

Housing People

"People." Maybe now the word gains heft. "Relationships" and "interaction" become clearer too. Community comes through. People interacting is pretty much everything in this case. The people who now or at one time have become aware of a need for housing and acted together made something bigger — a tangible, dynamic "we." The names below are pulled from emails I received from several people when writing this article. Although they didn't come out and say it, I realized all of those who wrote me were talking about other people, really investing time in writing about a whole lot of people. That says something... just read their names:

ML Healey, Barth Jarek, Mitzi Pratt, Liz Toomey, Leah Smith, Diane Jetmund, Derril Bazzy, John Abrams, Zee Gamson, Warren Doty, Susan Wasserman, Molly Flender, Candy DaRosa, Dale Julier, Tip Kenyon, Jim Feiner, Steve Gallas, Heather Sussman, Mitch Posin, David Vigneault, Terri Keech, Bob Wheeler , Philippe Jordi, June Manning, Carl Widdis, Jerry Weiner, Elenore Hebert, Walter Delaney, Helen Manning, Woody Vanderhoop, Fritz Knight, Abbe Burt,  Juleann VanBelle, Leo Frame, Harvey Beth, Ernie Mendenhall, Melissa Vincent, Laura Barbera, Andre Mallegol, Barbara Hoffman, Doug Ewing, Betty Ann Bryant, Lenny Jason, Linda Marinelli, Beverly Wright, Dave Farraguzzi, John Early, Ted Morgan, Pat Mitchell, Randi Vega, Richard Leonard, Lionel Romain, John Benoit, Mark Hutger, Jennie Green, Richard Skidmore, Andy Goldman, Pat Manning, Janet Hathaway, Alan Gowell, Christina Brown, Christine Flynn, Ron Diorio, Glenn Hearn, Michael Colanari, Caroline Flanders.

Take a second to imagine the connections, the lives, the stories. Honestly, I do not know some of these people, and I don't know any of their favorite colors. Nor have we spoken about the joy each receives from helping people into homes. But I look at those names en masse — this list is not in order, and by no means is it comprehensive — and in the mix I literally see interaction. When I read the individual names I feel a range and scope to life in action.

No matter your political affiliation or sense of economic justice I think you'd agree that something important compelled these people to surface and respond. It has been said 5 committed people can change the world. Well, here are 66. This list, no these people speak to a weaving, a wave of interaction. Kind of defines us. The story on and off the page here is a story of these people and others doing one thing in this case: making houses possible. They compose more than a list. They compose a significant and potent, informal network of change. 

Awareness: Skits, Parades, Symposia and Plenaries

The epigraph at the beginning — "I need a secure bed for myself and my garden" was on a sign. The sign was in wheelbarrow, overflowing with clothes and gardening tools, being pushed by Bill Gamson in the 4th of July parade in 2000. People do the strangest things to build awareness.

The humor and intrigue built through theater is darn effective. In efforts to raise awareness, as Zee Gamson relates, she and the members of "SHAC (Secure Housing Action Committee) marched in the July 4 parade wearing marvelous hats made into houses and gave out little slips to the surprise of  parade-watchers telling them that affordable housing was a big island problem... Later in the summer, we put on a display at the Agricultural Fair and did a skit about affordable housing."

These skits and parades are pretty informal. But they are instances of an idea, of joy in action. There's a saying about art, that it makes the familiar strange. Well, often the day to day is just too damn informal: it just goes on. In art and skits people are perked, curiosity is piqued — nothing didactic is exchanged, just a possible connection. If we were to draw a picture of these exchanges it might look like overlapping large and small circles. Things grow, people talk, groups gather and focus on things; symposia are had (symposium means a drinking party.)

"The following summer at the Ag Fair, we put up a tent where people could come inside to be video-taped about their experiences with affordable housing.  There were some very emotional moments and touching pictures from these interviews, which were shown on a continuous loop at subsequent housing events."

The personal side of the story emerged.

Like many others, Laura Barbera was in a housing bind, "6 or 7 years ago...we were caught totally unaware, as housing on the island had skyrocketed before we had time to think."  They got busy. Awareness formed circles of responses, requests for information gathered knowledge. People got smart. For example Barbera knows, "1320 is the code used for unbuildable lots in the Assessor Books kept in every town hall.  I accumulated a list of names and began a letter writing campaign explaining my situation and pointing out that in this town, variances could only be granted to those who have never owned property before and who would build a house  which would become their principal residence. I received a few responses, one was a hit." This is quite tactical grass roots stuff.

It cannot go without saying that there was no "Housing Institute" that trained these people. They were and are smart people responding organically to a set of needs. But in the process they became experts, alert to the nuances of place, of people, of zoning, of banking.

Bob Wheeler says, "It became crystal clear...that affordable housing was the key to the survival of the island.  I had a large number of people approach me in my role as Senior Lending Officer at Dukes County Savings Bank trying to purchase a home, and too often my response was that we couldn't help them because they couldn't afford to take on a mortgage on even the lowest price homes.  So I resolved to get involved, and I'm glad I did."

We all know about group dynamics. If we look back at the list of people's names and interconnect their circles of influence it becomes a pretty interesting picture of community dynamics — an interwoven web of immanent knowledge in action. Somehow this kind of web forms naturally here, and people benefit in all sorts of ways.

Now, in 2008, many people look at the homes and people in them created by a long-serving community of committed people and say VHO, IAHF, DCRHA, IHT, CPA, 40B — they see a bunch of acronyms. But, these acronyms are stand ins. Yes, they mean Vineyard Housing Office, Dukes County Regional Housing Authority and so on, but, they are really landmarks for a process that surfaces out of the joy and determination in shared action. In many ways these acronyms are unintended consequences created by people who share a common purpose — keeping people here by building houses people can afford.

The community impact is substantial. According to David Vigneault, "Since the start of 2005 there have been 9 lotteries in 5 towns for a total of 33 ownership opportunities with 22 turn-key homes and 11 building lots. Although there is no set number at which the island community regains the housing resiliency, what began as several "Let's put our heads together" years ago has restructured the way the entire island "does housing."

"As well, during the same period, there have been 3 Habitat homes and a few uses of zoning such as the Homesite Subdivision by-laws to generate a other ownership opportunities not offered through lottery. There are some 70 ownership opportunities in development in five towns that should be available in the next 2 to 3 years. All sorts of "community" growth coming."

Seems that community growth is more than just housing growth. Yes, the purpose of housing growth is to regain resiliency, but the purpose of this resiliency is to retain the social connections, the people, the capacity for "we" here. A lot of this is spontaneous. In an early Aquinnah lottery, Richard Skidmore had the opportunity to take part in community growth by winning a homesite. "The mere fact of "winning the lottery" has broadened my association with others ... I see I now have a community of about 40 friends who feel really good about what they do — and it was unintentional!

And on we go. Zee Gamson's and many other people's stories continue; she is "the Chilmark rep to the board of the Housing Authority and just joined the board of the Island Housing Trust as the HA’s rep." Zee says,  "(One way to keep the various island housing groups and town groups connected is to have these inter-locking memberships—tiring for those who hold those positions but organizationally smart.)  At the first meeting of the IHT, I realized I knew a lot of the people on that board from the early years of this effort.  But I was also happy to see people I did not know, including recipients of affordable housing.  That means that the circles are widening."

And the joy grows.

No matter which way you look at it, as a tipping point, overlapping circles of influence, community awareness, "people with secure beds and gardens" is an outgrowth of how we in this community work together. In this case the product is housing, but the process, this building a stronger "we", happens in lots of very small and large ways, everyday. It's happening right now, in too many ways for me to know. It's very safe to say we're better for it — we are here.