Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands - Part 14

The 2000 federal census indicated a very real problem for Cape Cod: Young people are leaving. In the 1990s, the number of people living on Cape Cod between the ages of twenty to twenty-four declined by almost 25% and the number of twenty-five to thirty-four year olds fell by nearly 21%.

Andrea Bogomolni is a twenty-nine year old scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She's part of a research project on how different flu types pass between marine mammals and birds. Her work is directly related to the potential bird flu pandemic. But for Bogomolni, having a good job and a master's degree in a science specialty is not enough to survive in the Cape economy.

Andrea Bogomolni: "I'm living at the edge right there. I think I am definitely living on that edge. And I know that at the end of the month I am barely, if at all, making it."

The Falmouth village of Woods Hole where Bogomolni lives and works has zero affordable housing units, a fact she knows well. Since leaving her winter rental earlier this year, Bogomolni's been unable to find a place she can afford. She'll be spending this summer living on friends' couches. And after the summer? She'll probably leave.

Andrea Bogomolni: "I'm actually trying to ponder that now. Is it worth staying and not have a place to live that I can afford on my own. I mean, I'm almost thirty. I'd like to have a house or have someplace I could call home, but I can't do it here. And I have a lot of friends who have very stable jobs in town who are considering leaving as well, to Oregon, to Washington, moving to places where you can still afford houses. People moving to Texas, down South, different places they probably never would have considered moving before."

Bogomolni hesitates to use the word, but in reality, she's living in poverty. She cannot afford to turn the heat on in the winter and she cannot afford to pay the rent this summer. The entire situation, she says, is affecting her health.

Andrea Bogomolni: "I don't do things even for myself, like go to the gym because, right now, I don't have the money. And I think when you start cutting out these things out of your life that are healthy, I think that is when you are living at that level of possible poverty, when it affects your health. When that income that you take in doesn't equal what it takes to be healthy, I think that's a problem."

Bogomolni's situation begs the question: What are the ripple effects when young scientists cannot afford to live near one of the most important marine research centers in the world?

Next month, Cape Cod housing guru Bob Murray will leave his Falmouth office, get in his car, and drive out to Provincetown. There, he'll start walking back. This will be the thirteenth year in a row Murray has walked the 108 miles across Cape Cod. Last year did not go well. The 66-year old found himself in the hospital with kidney problems on both the first night of the walk, and then again on the last.

Bob Murray: "My problem, as I say, is dehydration and severe cramping. You could have cut both my legs off last year after the first day and I would have welcomed it. It was just awful. And part of the walk was designed to be difficult because what people go through when they have housing problems is difficult. And we need to be reminded of that, and that is part of what the walk is designed to do, remind people why you're doing it and how lucky you are that you don't have a housing problem."

Murray is the executive director of the Falmouth Housing Authority. Since his first pilgrimage thirteen years ago, the housing problem here has become much worse. Back in 1998, a family of four needed to bring in just under $40k a year in order to afford a typical home in Cape Cod. Last year, the same family of four needed to make more than a 100k.

Bob Murray: "Now you're having an out-migration of people and it is very hard to rebound the economy when you haven't got people here. The Cape is a service-oriented economy, primarily, and if you don't have people here to provide service, you don't have an economy at all. If we don't stop this outward migration of young people and young families, we've got a real problem down the road coming."

John Ryan, a housing consultant with Development Cycles out of Amherst, Mass., first started looking at the area's housing situation in-depth more than a decade ago. Now, he says, the Cape is experiencing the same community crises the Islands saw in the early 1990s. Year-round rents have become unaffordable, and young workers cannot get a foothold here.

John Ryan: "I recently did a look a the look at the census in Wellfleet, and I saw that out of roughly two-hundred and fifty 19- to 25- year olds that were listed on the census in Wellfleet, there were only twelve who were living in households of their own generation. That the vast majority, 95%, were living with at least one person who was a full generation older than them."

The housing problem is more serious than simply bemoaning the fact young Cape Codders cannot afford to live near Mom and Dad anymore. If the next generation of teachers, nurses, and firefighters can't make Cape Cod and the Islands their home, then who will serve and take care of the people who can?