any think of the Vineyard as a playground for the wealthy; it surely is that, but it’s much more. Part of its appeal is that it retains the characteristics of community. Sprawl has been subdued. The villages still feel like villages. Bait and tackle shops mix with upscale galleries and antique stores. Tailors, truckers, plumbers, and pet groomers all have their place of business. There are a slew of realtors, a boatload of builders, too many t-shirt shops, and one cobbler. Farmers and fishermen still harvest from land and sea. Boat builders still hew to a line. All depend upon the Island community and the community depends upon them.

e might agree that a community consists of a place and those who have a relationship with that place. Land conservation is a familiar concept, and an important one, but now we have to think about another: people conservation. Affordable housing is about people conservation — neighbors and nannys, school teachers and social workers, truck drivers and technicians, artists and arborists, plumbers and plasterers, the town clown and the town drunk, whistleblowers and curmudgeons, peacemakers and troublemakers, politicians and taxpayers, grandmothers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers, those of different ages, abilities, incomes, colors, religious beliefs, sexual orientations. We need all these people; if we lose any it's a lesser place. People conservation is also about important jobs going un-filled, or being filled with those who are unqualified, or turning over quickly as people lose their housing, patience and hope. It's about small businesses closing for lack of reliable help and about families in crisis. It's about dismantling the continuity of generations that keeps a place intact. Affordable housing is less about houses or land or development and more about people and community.