Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Karen Carlson (kcarlson2wisc.edu) | |
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:30:58 -0800 (PST) |
Is this generally true? Our community has more people at or about 66
years of age. Haven't a number of communities found that the
retirement stage is well represented?
On Jan 22, 2010, at 12:04 AM, Jan DeKenis wrote:
I would add that older adults also can be excluded. It's hard to get a mortgage if one's retired and can't tie up a good portion of one' assets by owning outright.I think you could make an argument that the "gates" of cohousing areeconomic in nature. If you can't get a mortgage because of bad credit, poor job history, or just don't qualify for home ownership based on your incomeyou are locked out. Not by the community, by the lenders. This is nodifferent than any other housing ownership. The economic barriers serve asa screening device for people with stable jobs and successful incomegeneration. Thus, home ownership is a form of achievement, requiring a certain level of functional ability to hold a job. Since home ownership is a central feature of cohousing, this is unlikely to change. There are other forms of community which are not based on home ownership and many have very little investment requirements. One downside to this is that these can attract people who are highly dysfunctional and thus the community can end up spending inordinate amounts of energy dealing with social pathology, something cohousing, with its economic barriers is largely free from. Theobvious downside to the economic gate keeping of mortgages is that it excludes some excellent people, especially younger adults.It is too bad there is not more rental ability built into cohousing. At Sharingwood we have some rental spaces, but its much easier to have separate apartment setups in our large homes. The ability to remodel a basement, or other space into a separate living space could be planned into developments for future rental spaces but would require thinking ahead and also paying ahead the costs of plumbing stubs and other systems. I know that having rentals helps some people here pay their mortgages, while creating living spaces for people with rental incomes or who want to try out this weirdcommunity living experiment before investing in ownership. Rob Sandelin Sharingwood Snohomish County, WA _________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/_________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
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Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah, January 21 2010
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Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Rob Sandelin, January 21 2010
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Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Jan DeKenis, January 21 2010
- Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Karen Carlson, January 21 2010
- affordable cohousing, not "gated" Karen Kudia, January 22 2010
- Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Joanie Connors, January 22 2010
- Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Sharon Villines, January 22 2010
- Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Kay Argyle, January 22 2010
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Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Jan DeKenis, January 21 2010
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Re: affordable cohousing, not "gated" Rob Sandelin, January 21 2010
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