Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: a slush fund for temporary financial relief

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

I have to say I totally disagree with the previous two responses.
Helping individuals rather than having a fund in my opinion means that
beloved folk are helped and not so beloved folk are not.

We have good neighbors fund. It pays for meals accounts and cohousing
fund accounts that get too far behind. It is managed by three trusted
members of the community.

I personally would rather give of my excess to an anonymous fund where
individuals do *not* have to publicly announce they are in need, and
folk judge whether they want to support this person, this time, etc. I
give my $5 per month, the team contacts folk who are behind to find
out whats up, and decides whether to share from the fund.

(I certainly would not guess on my neighbors intent in giving to this
fund but if they are not giving voluntarily I hope they will stop.
Nothing is gained if they feel obligated. I give because I want to.)

To be clear, a big advantage of this is that what i am protecting is
"the fund" rather than any individuals. If the meals fund gets too far
behind it is hard to credit grocery shoppers--but the good neighbor
fund will have noticed before that point and stepped in. If money into
the cohousing fund is behind in income that might stop teams from
being able to spend money--but the good neighbor fund steps in to keep
the funding stream happening.

In this way I really am "giving to the good of the community" rather
than deciding which of my neighbors is worthy of my non-random act of
kindness.

(As always the caveat that Mosaic separates cohousing fund from HOA
funds due to a peculiarity of Massachusetts affordable housing law
40B.)

In terms of the original question about difficulty of affordable homes
paying rising HOA fees:
Our affordable homes have smaller share of the HOA responsibility
already--they own a smaller percentage share of the community--which
was set by the state when the homes were sold.

I'm not sure exactly what "coddling" means but if it means helping
then I'm in favor of it.

Liz
Mosaic Commons in Berlin, MA