Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: low/mixed income cohousing

[IAN_HIG (IAN_HIG]

Cascade Cohousing spent a lot of energy during the first 2 years
of its existance trying to get a mix of private and rental
housing.  In the end w

We had as many people in the group interested in rental housing as
we had interested in ownership.  Those who were interested in
rental housing formed a cooperative that sought government funding
to buy rental housing, mean while the private owner types kept
going and bought land.  We hoped that the cooperative would be able
to buy 6 out of the 14 houses to be built.  Unfortunately it took
the coop about 3 and a half years to get funded and the group had
sold all the last of its sites a few months before the funding came
through.  The rental people are now a more normal housing coop and
are buying single family homes, so the outcome is not all bad.

The main point being that in our experience there was as much
interest and enthusiasm from "low income" people as there was from
"high income" people.  Both were prepared to work very hard to
achieve cohousing.

cheers
Hig (Ian Higginbottom)
Cascade Cohousing
Hobart, Tasmania
Australia