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

[Katie Henry (katie-henry]

Rodney Elin wrote: 
------------One of the counterpoint discussions was to create a sort of 
voluntary "slush fund" to provide residents with short term financial 
assistance in a time of need, if someone were to be laid off from work, or if 
another resident had an unexpected emergency appliance repair, for example.
------------

Speaking of emergency appliance repairs ... Rodney is writing from my former 
community (Hi, Rodney). EVC has geothermal heating and cooling, which is 
wonderful in many ways, but the equipment can be extremely expensive to repair. 
Several heat pumps failed shortly after the two-year warranty expired and the 
homeowners were stuck with $1,000+ repair bills. That could really wreck your 
budget.


I had a proposal that never got off the ground, but I still think it was a good 
idea -- the community should self-insure the equipment. Say there are 55 
dwelling units in the building and a total of 70 heat pumps. Each unit owner 
pays $50 per year per heat pump, which puts $3,500 into the self-insurance fund 
per year, which then would reimburse members for heat pump repair/replacement. 
You would adjust the contribution depending on the repair history for the 
equipment and the number of anticipated failures. Not worth it for every 
microwave and toaster oven, but maybe something to consider for big-ticket 
items.

Katie Henry