Re: Development Phase
From: R Philip Dowds (rpdowdscomcast.net)
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:52:56 -0700 (PDT)
At Cornerstone, some individuals and groups are financially supportive of other 
individuals — although the details of this are mostly, and appropriately, kept 
out of public view.  Fine by me, and yet ... I am personally uncomfortable with 
this sort of person-to-person subsidy.

I am very interested in developing some community-shared resources which are 
deployed by community policy to help attract and sustain community-favored 
demographics that are substantiated by our community vision of identity.  This 
level of vision, commitment, and organization, however, seems well beyond the 
reach of our consensus abilities.  So what it boils down to is that some 
friends of so-and-so make private deals of support — ones which usually involve 
a return on investment.  It is not clear to me what this has to do with 
cohousing.  In theory, it can happen in any normal neighborhood — and indeed, 
outside the cohousing boundary, I am aware of a variety of person-to-person 
deals like this.

RPD
 
On Sep 21, 2011, at 10:53 AM, Sharon Villines wrote:

> 
> 
> On 20 Sep 2011, at 7:52 AM, S. Kashdan wrote:
> 
>> 
>> A few of our founding members were generous and trusting enough to provide 
>> loans to some other members that made it possible for them to move in and 
>> become long-term residents and participate in creating the cohousing 
>> community.
> 
> This is one of the ways diversity provides advantages to everyone. Those with 
> disposable income and savings can help those who have no cushion. Those 
> without are helping by stepping up to buy those units and making future 
> commitments. One of the problems of purchasing a home is that up-front money. 
> Many households don't have it. 
> 
> In cohousing there is a greater opportunity for one household to help another 
> with private loans. Today it is easier (I think) to get mortgages in 
> cohousing than it was in the 1990s, but people still have to have the 
> contract deposit and downpayment. The contract deposit is required every 
> early in the process. People who own their own homes will have all their 
> money tied up until they sell. This is a chicken and egg problem that few 
> have to face when they buy homes that are already built.
> 
> When people talk about a low-income cohousing community, this is one 
> advantage that is lacking. Those with higher incomes who can facilitate 
> purchases. One solution would be for a current cohousing community to 
> facilitate a low-income community the way some facilitate affordable units in 
> their current communities.
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
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