Everywhere on Martha's Vineyard, proprietors of hotels and restaurants will tell you that the housing shortage on Island is forcing a never-ending escalation of cost and effort to house their staff.  

Currently, virtually every restauranteur and hoteliers is forced to purchase or rent property on island to house their staffs, taking valuable housing units offline for regular islanders to live.  Taken together with the growing market for vacation home rentals, the pressure to house seasonal staff results in tremendous price increases for full and part time labor workers must live on Island in order to work evening shifts at restaurants and hotels everywhere.

If the Steamship Authority were to offer a vessel to Woods Hole from the Island each evening after 11:30pm, these businesses would have the opportunity to employ both Islanders, and mainlanders who could fill open positions on island and commute back and forth to Woods Hole like so many commuters across the United States.

The Steamship Authority currently offers an opportunity in their schedule that effectively serves as a thoroughfare for the construction and building tradespeople who live off island and commute to MV every day to work.

According to the MV Commission, hospitality and tourist related industries represent the largest percentage of workers on the island . The hospitality industry is currently poorly served by the Steamship schedule which ends at 9:30pm each night .  So, it is clear that the tourism element of the economy could see significant benefit if the island's businesses could gainfully have access to a larger pool of potential workers residing on the Cape.

The Steamship has, in its power, the ability to dramatically improve the lives, and lower the cost of living for Islanders everywhere by doing its part to reduce the need to house hospitality industry employees on the Island, which will create lots of potential housing inventory for Vineyard families to remain in their winter homes.  

We call for the Steamship Authority to serve the island that we live on, raise our families, and serve with passion every day.  The SSA needs to do its part to support the largest part of the Island economy and add a single passage nightly from Martha's Vineyard to Woods Hole, MA after 11pm for hospitality workers from Memorial Day through Labor Day each summer so that tourism industry workers residing on the mainland after serving Martha’s Vineyard community businesses.