Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Exploratory Membership Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 21

[DEL HOLLAND (delholland]

For us, we recognize philosophically, that the decision to join a cohousing 
community is a huge step in most people’s lives with a wide variety of concerns 
that may need to be resolved.  Consequently, our membership process has no set 
time deadline before the potential member both decides to join our community 
and our community affirms their membership.  We have variety of 
activities/actions (attend a introductory information meeting, submit a 
mortgage pre-approval, consent to a criminal background check,attend, at least, 
one committee/circle meeting and other community activities to get a feel for 
us and how we operate, etc.) a potential members needs to complete before the 
final steps to membership.  These need to be done in no particular order or in 
a particular time frame.  We want to allow folks to come to us at their own 
pace, whatever that is.  That way both parties, us and them are more sure that 
this is right for us.  Some, very rarely, move very quickly, 6 weeks or so.  
Most take several months.  Some have taken years.  Because there are charges 
for criminal background checks in some states, we require a $100 nonrefundable 
application fee, both to cover those costs and as a sign of serious interest.

Del Holland
DelHolland [at] aol.com
Prairie Hill Cohousing
Iowa City, IA