Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Should individual "sponsorship" be allowed of community property?

[Kay Argyle (argyle]

Warning -- LONG message.  Sorry.  But I do offer real examples.

So long as the gift doesn't violate community principles*, forget the
priority list:  Say thank you, and take it.  (*like, a donation of herbicide
when the community wants to be organic, or a common house subscription to a
porno cable channel or white supremicist magazine.)

Use common sense of course; we turned down a lawn tractor because the owner
(a neighbor, not a member) was specifying we had to use his pricey
brother-in-law to do some repairs on it -- sometimes you need to open the
gifthorse's mouth to check for Trojans inside.

How does it harm the community, if a few things get done ahead of schedule?
It doesn't impede the rest of the priority list.  It makes a few people
happy.  This is immoral?

We have had this discussion in our own community, repeatedly.

Some real-life examples:

The University of Utah Medical School was offered multiple millions, with
the proviso they be renamed after the donor.  The administration accepted.
The medical school faculty and staff's hostile reaction to the announcement
of the proposed name change was such that they returned the money, with
apologies.  A year or so later, the U of U College of Business cheerfully
renamed itself for the same donor.

During construction, an adjoining piece of land was for sale.  The cohousing
group didn't have the money to purchase it, although a number of people felt
it would be nice to have the land for an orchard.  Several members were
willing to put up the money, with the idea that eventually the group would
pay them back.  During a difficult meeting, a couple of other members
protested that if these people were willing to loan money to the group, they
should loan it for *whatever* the group wanted to do with it.  The proposal
was amended that the loan repayment would be a voluntary assessment.  The
deal fell through when the land was taken off the market.  A year later, a
member purchased the land herself, and regards it as her private property.

Several years later, another neighboring field became available.  A member
purchased it himself (one of the ones who had been willing to front money
for the earlier piece).  He offered the community the use of it.  The
community said thank you.

The member who spearheaded the orchard planting, asked if members would be
willing to donate the cost of trees instead of asking for money from the
landscape budget.  He sponsored a couple of trees.  Other people sponsored
trees, sometimes in somebody's name.  A couple of our low-income members
expressed uneasiness, because they didn't feel they could afford $30 for a
tree.  The organizer reiterated that this was voluntary -- the last thing he
wanted was to pressure anyone. The idea was to spare the community as a
whole the expense, leaving more for other projects.  The low-income members
had as much say as anyone in what types of trees were purchased with the
funds raised.

One member over the years has purchased an air hockey table, a pingpong
table, and a treadmill for the community.  In the first two cases, the teens
used it for a while then lost interest, and it is now just cluttering up the
common house.  The treadmill has been well used.

I wanted to create a xeric perennial bed by the common house.  The other
landscape members were agreeable, so it became part of the landscape plan.
I dug out rocks and dug in compost; I paid for the plants myself.  Some
members thought that it was wrong that I was asking for control -- the right
to plant what I wanted, or dig it up and move it if it wasn't working, or
take it out entirely.  If I was willing to put in twenty hours a month on my
garden (the word "my" in that context really bugged one guy), I should be
willing instead to put in twenty hours a month, on top of my other community
work, on projects other people thought were important, never mind if I
didn't.

No dice.  Do you think I'm stupid?  Or are these people really that naive?
Of course they aren't -- I don't see them contributing anything extra, with
no strings.  They play power games themselves, and assume that's what I'm
doing.

It's fine if somebody *wants* to give money or labor to the group under
those conditions, but for the group to *demand* those conditions?  That's
not cohousing, that's communism-as-practised -- the sort that has
impoverished so many countries.

You remember the horse in Animal Farm?  The one who responded to every
setback by saying he would work harder? When he collapsed, the pigs said
they were sending him to a spa for his health.  The goat puzzled out the
word "Knackers" on the side of the van that came to pick him up, but he
wasn't sure what that meant.

The year before and the first two years after move-in, I was in "I'll work
harder" mode.  Members were unhappy about the ugly roadbase gravel along the
central path.  It stuck on your shoes, and smelled bad on hot days. They
wanted it covered a.s.a.p.  While other people unpacked their boxes, I
helped plan paving the path.  I attended meetings, researched pavement
types, wrote for samples, did surveys, talked to the fire department, read
about ground covers, priced bricks, attended trade shows, did cost
calculations, located seed sources, wrote proposals, ordered sand, studied
bids, visited nurseries, spread compost, planted.

Other people went camping on weekends; I laid sod for the common house lawn
in blazing sun and cold night rain.  I researched play equipment, even
though none of the community kids is mine.  Members said they were tired of
looking at orange leafbags; I was one of the handful out there heaving bags
into the back of the pickup, driving them to the garden, slitting them open
and dumping out slimy smelly leaves, and when my gloves got soaked I was
grateful for the warmth from the decomposition that kept my hands warm
enough to keep working.

All my vacation time was spent on community work.

I accomplished a lot.  I learned a lot -- I learned about soil structure,
the difference between masons sand and sharp sand, to drive a bobcat, and
lay sprinkler line.  I look back on that period with pride and increased
self-confidence, but absolutely no wish ever to live through it again.  One
of the things I learned was that I can't keep giving and giving and giving
without getting enough back; after a while unpleasant things come to fill
the void it creates inside me, anger and depression and passive-aggressive
behavior.  I learned the necessity of telling people, You want it done, you
do it.  If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it my way, for my reasons.  I
learned the necessity of turning a deaf ear to bitching.  (It doesn't mean I
don't fall back into the trap from time to time.)

I don't do nearly as much community work now (despite which, I think I still
do more than average).  I pick my projects, sometimes totally ignoring
community priorities.

> ... anything that is not a
> priority for the whole community shouldn't be paid for.

!!!  By that logic, our community wouldn't have a parking lot, let alone
subsidized childcare during meetings.  (Let people park on the street, or
get rid of their car and take the bus like I do.  If the city insists we
have a certain amount of paved area anyway, we can put picnic tables on it.
Car owners are a special interest group.)

In longterm relationships, what goes around comes around.  I'll be honest if
you are.  With the government, I pay taxes, and I expect the police to show
up if I need them -- but it isn't a quid pro quo.  In a community, I'll help
work/pay for your wants and needs, even if I don't share them, on the
understanding that you will help work/pay for mine.  I'll be generous if
you'll be generous back.  You give in your way, and I'll give in mine --
Recompense doesn't have to be today, it doesn't have to be in the same
currency.

We don't have to have identical wants and needs, or identical resources, in
order to live together.  Just as a mixture of straw and clay are stronger
than either alone, a community is stronger for its mingled diversity.  The
ability to accept (or reject) gifts, to decide if the strings attached are
acceptable, to balance civic-mindedness and self-interest, is one of the
things that makes a community instead of a business or a religion.

All of which said, I think a voluntary donation fund to be spent as the
community decides is an idea to hold onto.  Our monthly assessments are a
flat fee, the same for everyone, low- or high-income, one- or four-bedroom.
They are held down to be affordable.  We haven't yet run through the capital
leftover from the construction loan being paid off, but the amount is losing
digits fast, and we'll soon have to think about alternative ways of funding
big projects.

Kay
Wasatch Commons
Salt Lake City, Utah
argyle @ mines.utah.edu

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed."
-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

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