Step Up And Do The Right Thing With Our Island Home

To the editor: At this spring’s Annual Town Meeting, please vote for the construction of a new Our Island Home. Without your vote, the Town of Nantucket will close the facility, meaning all of the island’s most vulnerable residents will be forced to move to another location off-island. While that is unusually cruel to the current residents of the facility, the services that Our Island Home provides are vital to the wider community, such as those people who come for short-term rehabilitation after an illness or injury, or the school children who visit the facility and have an opportunity to interact with and learn from people from another generation. There are also many jobs at stake if Our Island Home were to close, like nurses, dietary staff, housekeeping, and other staff members.

The cost for the new building is significant. Yet, the town is doing all it can to help shift the tax burden to the people who can better afford it, and there is an expectation that large donations will be made to offset a significant portion of the cost.

Some people might try to derail this by saying that Nantucket is not in the nursing home business, yet Nantucket has stepped up and done the right thing for hundreds of years by taking care of its people and for the past 40 years by making the nursing home available to our community. And that’s what Nantucketers do – we’re 30 miles out to sea, and we take care of our families, friends, and neighbors because we can’t rely on the state or neighboring communities for help. If Our Island Home were to close, what would that say about who we are now?

Please vote in favor of a new Our Island Home at the next Annual Town Meeting. It’s the right thing to do for our community.

Chip Newton
Pequot St., Nantucket