BARNSTABLE – Affordable housing on Cape Cod continues to be an issue in many areas which is prompting Barnstable County Commissioners to focus on more ways to help alleviate the problems.
County Commissioner Mark Forest said one of the ways they plan to combat affordable housing issues is starting new initiatives that have the goal of creating new options while maintaining the current inventory.
“This is an area where I’m very optimistic having been involved in securing a lot of federal and state funding for the county here on Cape Cod. I think that this is an area that we have very high hopes on,” said Forest.
He said bringing key people and stakeholders together to identify some of the services that need help and finding ways to provide support for them will be at the top of the to-do list going forward.
As a first step, Forest said they will be developing the framework to target key activities and initiatives that is specifically designed to expand their inventory while also protecting the current inventory that towns have.
“We have literally thousands of units of affordable housing, but sometimes that inventory is difficult to manage, in fact there may not even be a person in that community that is essentially assigned to help sustain that inventory,” Forest said.
They will continue to work towards keeping housing that is deed restricted or available as affordable housing in their respective inventories for each community that is trying to help its residents stay in the area.
Forest also said the Commission plans to help towns with their language on deed restrictions, and sample templates on contracts, which can be overwhelming for smaller towns that have no officials in place to tackle the issues.
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