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Lotteries and RafflesAugust 21, 2008 Martha's Vineyard is big into lotteries and raffles. I guess it's the same all over, but the whole thing makes me uneasy. It's one thing to raffle off a quilt for the benefit of a nonprofit organization, or various objects and services to help with someone's medical expenses, but now the Island Affordable Housing Fund and Island Elderly Housing are raffling off a house. A new two-bedroom, energy-efficient house in Edgartown. Raffle tickets cost $1,000 each. No more than 600 tickets will be sold. The money raised, according to a news brief in this week's Martha's Vineyard Times, "will support other affordable housing projects, as well as supplement a senior van and a community meals program that help older residents keep their independendence." John Early, a builder and a former selectman in my town, is quoted as saying, "This is the most fun I have had planning a fundraiser in some time." Is anyone else outraged by this? I'm so angry my gut is churning. I'm so angry I'm trying to be rational. What I'm trying to understand is what were these people thinking? How did they arrive at the notion that this was morally, ethically, and politically acceptable? Let's see if I've got this right. They're raffling off a two-bedroom house. Who's likely to be in the market for a two-bedroom house? Couples, singles, and very small families who don't already own a house on Martha's Vineyard, right? Couples, singles, and very small families who already live here but don't already own a house probably aren't in the position to make charitable donations of $1,000. If they're like me, coming up with $50 for the organizations whose work they fervently believe in is challenge enough. Coming up with $1,000 for a 1-in-600 chance of owning a house -- is someone kidding? OK, calm down, girl: Maybe the idea is that we're supposed to get sponsors, like for a walkathon. Let's see, 10 sponsors at $100 a piece would do it . . . How many people do I know who'd stake me $100 so I could buy a $1,000 raffle ticket for a 1-in-600 chance of owning a house? Well, I'm lucky: I do have friends who have given me $75 or $100 for things they knew I wanted very much. But as contributions toward a raffle ticket -- a raffle ticket that, as I keep reminding myself, would buy me a 1-in-600 chance of owning a house? I wouldn't ask. If they want to make a contribution to the Island Affordable Housing Fund or Island Elderly Housing, they can do so directly. So Islanders who actually need housing seem an unlikely target for these raffle tickets. So who is going to be buying them? People in a position to make $1,000 contributions to charity. Most likely they've already got at least one house; maybe they want another one, or maybe they've got a poorer friend or relation who could use a house, or maybe they've checked the real estate ads and done the math and figured that if they win the house for $1,000, they could sell it for at least $450,000. It's a rare hedge fund that does anywhere near that well, so maybe to their mind the odds aren't so bad? Why do we -- at least the Island Affordable Housing Fund and Island Elderly Housing, not to mention builder and former selectman John Early -- find this acceptable? My best guess is the frog-in-hot-water theory: toss a frog into boiling water and he'll scramble out if he can; toss a frog into cool water and turn the heat up gradually and he'll be cooked before he knows it. The housing situation has been so desperate for so long that we think moving twice a year is normal. The disconnect between the island's median income (last I looked it was around $50,000) and the cost of a "starter home" (around $450,000) is glaring. Without bought-long-ago or inherited land, or a hefty (possibly inherited) down payment, it's hard to bridge that chasm. The available "affordable" (or at least well below market value) lots and dwellings are few; the need is great. That chasm is bridged by lotteries: when an "affordable" lot (or, less often, a house) becomes available, aspiring homeowners who meet the qualifications fill in an application, get their financing together, and hope that their name gets drawn out of a hat, or a jar, or a big drum. If it is, their problems are solved. If it isn't, well, they can try again, and again, and again . . . The other thing we've got going on Martha's Vineyard is the Possible Dreams Auction. Held every year at the beginning of August, the auction features (mostly) wealthy people bidding large, occasionally ridiculous sums of money for unique "dreams" -- stuff like a Famous Journalist taking you sailing on his yacht or Clifford the Big Red Dog coming to your kid's birthday party. The proceeds benefit Martha's Vineyard Community Services, an umbrella social services agency, and the total haul each year is well over $500,000. Put "Possible Dreams" together with affordable housing lotteries and the ubiquity of raffles, and what do you get? The headline on the news brief in today's Martha's Vineyard Times: "Home raffle offers small chance at big dream." But seriously, people -- wealthy people spending money they can spare for stuff they don't need provides a couple hours' fun for the spectators and big bucks for the beneficiary, but where's the fun in people scrounging for money they don't have for a teeny chance at something they desperately need? If you want some fun, here's another idea: How about selling $1,000 raffle tickets to people with more houses than they need? Whoever's ticket is drawn gets to give up their house to a family that could use it -- or probably, given the size of these houses, to a couple of families and several singles. I've tried to think this through, but it hasn't helped. My gut is still churning. Told that the people had no year-round housing, did the queen say, "Let them buy a raffle ticket"? The words running through my head are those that Joseph Welch addressed to the out-of-control Senator Joe McCarthy in 1954: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" But I'll leave them in my head, for now. I won't speak them aloud. Instead I ask the Island Affordable Housing Fund and Island Elderly Housing: "What were you thinking?"
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