Re: Money again; Seward in Mpls
From: Fred H Olson -- WB0YQM (FRED%JWHvx.cis.umn.edu)
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 15:55 CDT
The Seward Cohousing Core Group continues to muddle along waiting for
a conclusion about the severity of the underground petroleum tank leak
pollution on the 'UVB' site.  More investigation has been done and a
report written but we have yet to get a copy so we can get a 'second
opinion' -- an independent interpretation of the test results.  We
have been looking for other sites but so far none is nearly as
appealing as the UVB site in Seward.
 
But we have a long way to go.  The pollution related uncertainty and
delays have taken a big toll on our group -- nearly 100% turnover
since we started 15 months ago.  We currently have 10 households
(7 with a single adult) of which several have not been very active.
 
RE: Money again
 
Our group specifically wants a site in the city of Minneapolis.
I expect, on any site, we would work with a community development
corporation to develop our community and hope to get city help with
site acquistion. These connections will also hopefully facilitate
getting financing.
 
BTW, I expect that working with a community development corporation
will give us less independence in planning our community but I think
it is not a major problem and well worth accepting such a partnership.
Besides as we all know there are plenty of limitations on most groups
planning and design - planning and zoning restrictions, financial
institution's requirements including 'second use' considerations for
example.
 
We too have considered approaching the Coop Bank tho we have not yet
done so; at what stage of the process does such contact make sense?
I dont recall where I heard this but I recall hearing that they
were likely to respond to all of the cohousing requests for money
by picking one (or a few?) to finance as sort of a trial or
demonstration.  For this they would presumably pick proposals
that look particularly attractive by some unknown criteria.
 
Another source of financing that seems like it might be a nice fit
with cohousing is the socially responsible investment funds such as
Working Assets and Calvert Fund.  At a recent socially responsible
investmenting conference here in Minneapolis some informal discussion
took place between a cohouser ( Mark Deziel who's not on the list)
and fund people that sounded promising.
 
Fred Olson,  Seward Cohousing Core Group (Minneapolis)
 
(As COHOUSING-L sysop this note: We've ~100 subscribers now. Also, to
get off the list send message: "unsub cohousing-l" to listserv [at] uci.com)

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