Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Expulsion Policy

[Diana Leafe Christian (diana]

Hello Arthur, 

I'm making these suggestions from my work as a communities researcher and 
consultant and author of Creating a Life Together.

I'm a strong advocate for communities having a clear, thorough membership 
process as well as a clear policy for asking (and expecting) someone to leave 
the community.  However, what Diana of Mosaic Commons says is true in the US. 
Here  an office in each state, the Secretary of State, grants people various 
kinds of property-owning legal entities that are legal in that state (like 
Homeowners Associations (HOAs), Condominium Associations, and Housing Co-ops) 
and determines the rules for each legal entity it grants. There are strict 
membership rules for HOAs and Condo Associations re membership issues. Not so 
with Housing Co-ops, whose members can legally can choose their members—they 
can say Yes, No Thank You, or Not at This Time—to people who apply for 
membership. Housing Co-ops can also legally ask a co-op member to leave. I 
believe this is true for Canadian Housing Co-ops as well.

So whether you can legally expel someone from Kawartha Commons depends on the 
rules for the legal entity you're using to co-own the property (a Strata Title 
Corporation, or Housing Co-op, or . . . ?). If so, I believe your first step 
would be to contact the provincial agency that grants and administers legal 
entities; the Ontario version of the Secretary of State office in a US state.

Please keep in mind what the term "expulsion" might mean, and what kind of 
policy about this your group might want.
        For example, is there the legal right to compel someone to vacate their 
housing unit and stop living in the community? That is, they'd move out but 
they'd still own it and could still collect rent, and (theoretically), could 
still participate in meetings. 
        Or are you seeking the legal right to compel someone to not only move 
out but sell their unit too? So they'd no longer have renters there or be able 
to participate in (and perhaps disrupt) community meetings. 

Please keep in mind also that there is social pressure as well as legal rights. 
I believe cohousers, no matter their legal entity, can ask--that is, they can 
just ask— someone to no longer live in the community and move out. This would 
not have the force of law and wouldn't be an eviction; it would be a request. 
Most cohousers wouldn't want to ask this though, in my experience, because 
they'd be afraid asking someone to move out would hurt their feelings and/or be 
unfair (no matter what the person may consistently do that makes others want to 
ask them to leave).  But if the group was willing to ask the person or 
household to move out, it could be a way to induce someone whom the group no 
longer wanted there to leave.  Of course the opposite is true; some people 
would not be moved by a "social pressure" request like this, but would continue 
living there no matter how often they were asked to please move away.
 
I'm a strong believer in communities having good reasons—agreed upon and in 
writing—to ask someone to leave: an expulsion policy. For example: 
        The person engages in criminal behavior and you know this. 
        They're verbally or physically abusive to their partner or children, or 
verbally abusive to other community members. (Then you'd need to define what 
you might mean by "abusive" speech, and this is different for every group of 
people.) 
        They consistently violate the community's agreed-up and written down 
rules, like for dues and fees, parking, quiet hours, Common House usage. 
("Agreed-upon rules that are in the community's meeting minutes or policy 
documents; not vague beliefs about rules that are only "in the air" but not 
written down). 
        Their behavior and apparent attitudes become so disruptive and hurtful 
that increasing numbers of other community members no longer want to go to 
meetings or participate in community meals when the person is there, and some 
are in fact scared of them. See the Communities magazine series, "Working 
Effectively with Especially Challenging Community Members 
<https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1cj1TTQfhdimkldd0YJ48Gi3J_-9ZviBx>."
 I've tried to embed the link here but if that didn't work, it's 
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1cj1TTQfhdimkldd0YJ48Gi3J_-9ZviBx

I wish you and Kawartha Commons all the best in figuring this out!

Diana Leafe Christian

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