Stefanie Coxe
When Rome is burning, we mustn t fiddle or delay. Our housing crisis is as big an epidemic as COVID-19 and town leaders in Orleans need to act now.
Cape Cod is facing the worst housing shortage in its history one that threatens the economic viability and sustainability of our region. With the median home price above $630,000, no household making less than $200,000 can afford to buy a house on Cape Cod. Seniors, municipal workers, working families, and locally employed professionals have joined the ranks of those who cannot afford to live here.
While the crisis was hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic, it only got us to a place the Cape Cod Commission predicted for us by 2025. Unlike the 2008 housing crisis, this is not a bubble: demand has long outpaced supply and we simply don’t build enough small units that are naturally affordable to year-round residents. Consequently, residents who have spent their entire lives on the Cape are leaving in frightening numbers.