A silent real estate warfare lies in wait to be recognized.
This letter is being written to “Awaken to Action” the people of Fairhaven, before it’s too late.
May we not fall asleep too, as our Cape Cod neighboring towns have, and are now scrambling frantically to shelter not just the poor and unemployed, but also, and more so, their Vital Workforce who serve their communities with essential services, that make their communities thrive.
Vital services that are necessary for every community to have for the safety and well-being of the people. Services to include healthcare, police, firefighters, ambulance drivers, etc.
Many of these listed essential workers are now finding themselves displaced and homeless. And are literally being pushed out of Cape Cod to no fault of their own.
Both my daughter and I, employed full time in the emergency department at the Cape Cod hospital, found ourselves in the very same position. We too would have been displaced and homeless had we not found our home in Fairhaven.
We could actually afford a home in Cape Cod, but there just weren’t any to buy. Every time we would try to purchase a home, an investor would come along and pay cash well over asking price. The cottage we were renting in a residential zoned area had switched from long-term to short term, and was being bought by an out-of-state investor. We were among many, including some of our coworkers, who also experienced this abrupt push out of our home and off of Cape Cod.
My daughter and I were very fortunate because we found a place and had enough money to purchase a home here in Fairhaven, where I grew up as a young child. But many other hard-working people who offer vital services to their community were not able to find a home, and many of them are still displaced and left homeless. And this is happening across the nation. And it’s only going to get worse.
Now the town governments are trying to build units to push the essential workforce into, many of which will be owned by the same type of investors.
However, the problem with this severe housing shortage could be eased greatly, and thousands of homes could become available again, if places like Airbnb were banned in residential zoned areas, (areas not zoned for business). Also, if town officials would appropriate and uphold the zoning laws and bylaws in a humanitarian format that simply doesn’t allow family homes being used exclusively for profits.
Profit making, at the expense of creating homelessness and displacement for a community’s vital workforce should be a crime.
We need humanitarian laws put into place to guard against this nationwide manipulation caused by big investor groups, as mentioned in a “60 Minutes” segment aired last March 2022.
I asked the readers to look up this segment and review it. If you haven’t seen it, you need to learn and know about it. And/or review it again. It may be a time that we have to fight to keep Fairhaven the peaceful beautiful town that it is, and has been for many many years.
Home is one of the most basic needs we have as people. The need for home is in line with food and water. The government on all levels must start paying attention to this severe housing crisis and live up to their fiduciary responsibilities. And we the people who live and provide essential services in our communities must let them know that. The people in the town of Fairhaven need to become a unified force field that demands Action & Protection not only from Wall Street investors, but also the drug cartel that are buying homes on Cape Cod cash, and running their drug businesses.
We do not want them here in Fairhaven, period.
Why are we in a severe housing shortage, that has dominoed into a workforce shortage?
Because we have an infiltration of greedy investors sweeping the nation, who are rudely uprooting our family neighborhood residential zoned areas, and turning family homes into mini hotels for profit. And the town, state and federal governments are letting this happen, and not protecting the immediate needs of the people and/or respecting our zoning rights.
I will say this not once but I’ll say it again. We are in this mess due to greed both on the side of investors, and on the side of many of our elected ones.
I ask, does “greed” have a right to stampede our family neighborhoods and kick to the curb our essential workforce and the people who live and serve our communities?
Zoning was created for the purpose of order and protection for all people, not just the wealthy. Investors who live out of town have absolutely no business gobbling up our family homes in residential areas not zoned for business.
Currently we have bylaws here in Fairhaven, and a cap on how many Airbnb and other short term rentals are allowed here. Unfortunately no one in town hall is enforcing these laws. And we are currently without a building commissioner.
Do you realize how many investors can come in and sweep up every house that comes for sale and pay cash for it, while dismantling and de-stabilizing our family residential neighborhoods? Essential workers who have lived here all their lives and have served this community do not deserve this. We will have less and less homes for rent and less and less homes that we can afford to buy and be taken over by these greedy investors if we do not do something about it now.
I am asking the people of Fairhaven to join me and to help me find a way to enforce the bylaws and to even work on creating a ban against short term rentals in our family neighborhoods that are not zoned for business.
Let’s stand together and be a Mighty Force against such intrusions that would cause our people of Fairhaven to be displaced and homeless.
And may our town government cater more to the people who have served this community and have lived here all their lives, than they do with these big investor groups from Wall Street.
Michelle Costen. Fairhaven
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