Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Launching June 15: CohousingMap.net

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

> On Jun 16, 2016, at 10:21 PM, Tiffany Lee Brown <magdalen23 [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
>  Why not make it so the same platform/with a differently branded app could be 
> used for developers to start for-profit housing arrangements?

Why would a developer or a group of developers do this unless they knew they 
could make a profit?  What we lack is research and reliable industry figures 
that current professionals are willing to share so as to draw other 
professionals into the biz.  
> 
> The rationale in this case is to get venture capitalists and/or developers to 
> put up the money to develop tools the rest of us need! I've spent most of my 
> life in nonprofit, community projects. It does not behoove us to underpay our 
> visionaries and workers, or to expect everything to be done on a volunteer 
> basis --  this is still how I do many things, but I think it lends itself to 
> burnout and limits community leadership and engagement to people who can 
> afford to work for free. Not everyone has that luxury.

I agree that we overwork our volunteers to death.   If cohousing is to grow, it 
needs to provide people with an income so they can work in a field they love 
full time and not “hobby” time.  

However, I still don’t see developers putting up the money to develop tools 
“the rest of use will use.”   First of all … who are “the rest of us?”  The 
volunteer folks?  The folks that will  work to create one cohousinig community 
they will live in but not another one?  How does that further the movement 
beyond what is happening right now?   If cohousing is to really, seriously take 
off … it needs a professional group of people who earn a living at this.  
Development is too big to do part time or with just volunteers.   (And God 
Bless all the zillions of volunteers and volunteer hours by paid professionals 
who have gotten us this far in the movement.  You are Awesome!)
> 
> Tiffany
> 
> Sent from the far shores of a distant land

Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC
Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
Falls Church, VA
202.546.4654

My password is the last 5 digits of Pi …
>