Cohousing-L Mailing List: corporations

[Fleck (foam4u]

This from Anne at Jackson Place Cohousing in Seattle (near downtown).

I'm reading about start-up coho groups "holding hands" with various
government and private organizations to reduce costs.
I would caution people to think twice and three times about going in with a
corporation (Habitat for Humanity is a corporation) to own/build part of
your project. Best intentions don't always pan out.

I would recommend that you look at your bylaws carefully and consider the
criteria you use to "choose" members. In our case a corporation chose us and
there was nothing we could legally do because we didn't have anything agreed
about letting a corporation buy in - we do now. It sounded OK at first; an
organization that provided housing for developmentally disabled adults. (I
count my blessings - it could have been Mitsubishi or another company
looking for a cheap condo for its employees).

But the guys living there (and possibly any corporate resident would be the
same) are a total drain on our resources. They never/rarely participate in
any activites, chores, events, meetings, etc. They're usually not on site on
weekends. The guys families don't pitch in either. The corporate owner is
usually late paying their HOAs. And if there were a legal squabble, the
corporation has way deeper pockets than any of our members do. They could
block budgets, demand consessions, and basically throw their weight around
(they haven't so far). And the corp. won't/can't "contribute" to anything,
they have to be assessed.

Our original optomistic attitude was "Let's try it and see". Well, this was
an irreversible decision - there was no "Let's see". The only constraint on
the property is that it must continue to be for disabled adults. Then we had
a couple of members quit after we decided to let the corporation buy because
they'd had a bad experience with a church that bought into a project they'd
lived in previously.

I'm not saying don't do it. But take a long, cold look at what the flip side
is. Read ALL the paperwork they give you and think about how you would
handle worst case scenarios. Corporation's and NGO's bottom lines never
reads "community". Good luck.