This is the second in a series of articles on how the lack of affordable housing in the Berkshires is undermining our local economy as well as other aspects of our local living. The first article, by Pier Boutin, M.D.,was titled “Without more housing, you are going to lose your doctor.”
To help educate our community about the extent of the problem and possible solutions, “Business Monday!” at The Berkshire Edge has organized a free webinar open to all members of the Berkshire community.
The webinar will take place live on Wednesday, March 12, 9:30 to 11 a.m., and will subsequently be available for streaming on The Berkshire Edge. Sign up by clicking here.
Our featured panelist is Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities Ed Augustus. Other panel members are Jim Harwood, president of the Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire; Eileen Peltier, CEO/president of Hearthway, Inc.; and Jane Ralph, executive director of Construct, Inc. Doug Mishkin, a member of the Egremont Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, will serve as moderator. Members of the business community and other participants will be invited to ask questions.
In anticipation of this event, The Edge is asking representatives of the local business community to describe how the housing shortage is impacting their operations. As Eric Singer, founder of Magnetworks (a Berkshire-grown next-generation job-search platform), notes, “When people can’t afford to live where they work, businesses can’t afford to hire. An unaffordable housing market shrinks the talent pool, increases turnover, and makes every hire an uphill battle.”
Read below to hear local restaurateur (previous co-owner of Cantina 229 in New Marlborough and current co-owner of Mooncloud and Juju’s in Great Barrington) Josh Irwin’s response to the issue.
“In the beginning days of Cantina 229 (a decade ago), I can remember employees showing me houses or apartments for rent in the towns surrounding New Marlborough and saying, ‘Check out these four options—which do I want?’” local restaurateur Josh Irwin begins. “Now my employees at Mooncloud and Juju’s tell me, ‘There’s nothing available.’ They’re often forced into a scenario that’s bad for them or, at least, not the best fit (like a 45-minute drive at the end of a long shift).”
This contrast explains the challenge an alarming number of restaurant owners throughout the Berkshires are experiencing with their staff. “The Haitian refugees who now work at Juju’s were recently looking for housing and could only find one option for $3,000 a month. Because they needed something close by, they jumped on it, even though it meant working two or three jobs just to make rent,” Irwin continues, noting their shared gratitude that the couple who bought the property decided to rent it rather than put it on Airbnb but also the reality that they have to charge that rent due to the purchase price (inflated home sale prices being another contributing factor to unaffordable rents).
In a region that values sustainability, he notes that this is clearly an unsustainable equation. During the pre-pandemic glory days of Cantina 229 under Josh and Emily Irwin’s ownership, employees kept showing up for the chance to work in a highly inventive kitchen and chic setting. Many were housed in a nearby cabin the Irwins bought for employee housing (something most business owners can’t afford to do). “As we moved toward a high-end tasting menu in 2021, the need to attract higher-level talent created new challenges. We were advertising in New York City and Boston and finding people who said they’d come, but only if we found them a place to live,” he explains.
“By the last iteration of Cantina when we reopened after COVID, which is the truest indication of the new reality, things had changed a lot. Many of our employees came from far away to work—including four from Pittsfield, one from West Stockbridge, and one from Winsted—which made it a lot harder to have a stable and sound business.” A potential employee from Albany declined an offer because the cost of gas would make just showing up to work a wash. At that point, going from one server during the winter months to a staff of 30 in the summer became impossible.
Their solution was to put their energy into two very different restaurant models: Mooncloud, which features drinks by mixologist Billy Jack Paul and tagliere boards with “cured meats, curated cheeses, fresh and pickled veggies, tinned fish, delicious spreads on toast, and absolutely top-notch poke bowls,” and Juju’s, which features chicken and crispy sides, “loud greens,” and soft serve ice cream. Juju’s website notes, “The lack of accessibility across housing and hospitality is ever more apparent. The love we have for our community is what fuels our desire to build projects, like Juju’s.”
“The biggest issue Emily and I face in operating our restaurants is personnel, so we had to figure out which levers we could lower to create a sustainable business. Dropping the number of employees down also lowers the volume you can handle, so we had to also lower the selection to make it work,” he continues. Mooncloud relies on three to four employees total, while Juju’s relies on two to three.
“It’s hard for anyone in the restaurant industry to make the numbers work,” he concludes. “If the barriers to entry are as fundamental as housing, you can’t attract a fresh flow of talent into the industry. This is the same problem being faced in other Berkshire businesses—carpentry, hospitality, healthcare—and until we address it, we’re going to see more business owners struggle to stay alive.”
Moreover, “Consumers aren’t fully educated about the core root of the problem,” he points out. “While they may feel frustrated when the menu options are limited or the service takes longer, they need to understand the struggle restaurant owners face in making the hires to function at any high standard.” Only those that come up with their own creative solutions are are able to make it.
So, for a while now, Irwin and his wife Emily have been trying to work on housing solutions. A few years ago, they had their sights on a potential local housing project but kept running into zoning issues with the town planning boards and local authorities. “From a legitimacy standpoint, we need to be able to show creative solutions for turning unique properties into possible opportunities,” he says. “A lot of properties have nuances, but if the right people continue to put their heads together, and local select boards are willing to show some flexibility, we should be able to thread the needle.”
“We were driving through Hudson the other day and I was thinking, ‘This is wild. Five new restaurants have opened in the last month, some on an amazingly gutsy scale, while further along Route 23 in Great Barrington, restaurants are struggling to stay open.” Admitting that he couldn’t imagine asking investors for money that would take 15 to 20 years to pay off, he also noted that there are a lot of secondary businesses in Hudson being opened by people who have already made their money doing something else.
“We have enormous wealth in Berkshire County, and more than 1,000 nonprofits, but we need projects on a massive scale, potentially built with private funding by people who have the means and desire to support the region and ensure its sustainability.” He envisions something like a legacy fund to build short- and long-term housing like Mill Town Capital did in Pittsfield—creating a “proof of concept” showing how a little bit of charity and economic “impact” investment could work and be replicated throughout the region.
As Irwin (who serves on Construct Inc.’s Board of Directors) points out, “We’re constantly trying to overcome the optics that this is about building housing for homeless people in Springfield. We need to change the narrative in Great Barrington.” That means recognizing that we are talking about working-class families, individuals working multiple jobs, and employees keeping the doors of our local businesses, restaurants, and hotels open. “Most of our staff at Construct are eligible for affordable housing because living in the Berkshires is expensive and wages aren’t keeping up, though we’re committed as an organization to change that by raising wages to meet today’s new demands,” he adds.
He also acknowledges that, while this is the beginning of the conversation, the way to truly help people create wealth is empowering them to purchase a home. “To do that, we need to work on getting the old family neighborhoods to return, rather than adding more and more second homes used for Airbnb rentals”—a task that is easier said than done.
