Cohousing-L Mailing List: Problem: cost not desire for coho

['Judith Wisdom (wisdom]

As I've understood two recent themes, the suggestion is that (a) not 
enough people know about or if they know are "ready" to make to step into 
coho; and (b) that coho groups should raise some $ to give to help other 
projects get started.

I'm sure the first is true and needs further brainstorming to solve.  The 
second, a solution to promote other groups seems reasonable, IF there are 
coho communities that can raise funds for that.

But what troubles me is this:there has been to my knowledge (I'm 
reasonably new on the list) no thought that in each community some 
effort be made to raise privately or seek quasi-public or public sources 
of funds to subsidize one or two units for people whose interests, 
character, etc., makes them in sync with the particular community, but 
who simply can't afford it.

My comprehension of this issue I hope and think would have come even were 
I not currently in the situation I'm in.  I had to stop my doctoral 
dissertation mid-stream (or further), I was on the faculty of a medical 
residency training program, I'm into alternative forms of living, etc.; 
i.e., 
I'm probably very much like many of the more well-heeled people who can 
afford cohousing.  All of my friends are also well-heeled because they 
have remained well, their careers have burgeoned, etc.

But chronic fatigue syndrome got me.  SSDI is my main source of income. 
and my savings (from the home I owned) have been used up by this situation.
But I want and very much need community, as unlike when I worked and/or 
was in school, I am extremely isolated, to my detriment.

I have found "affordable" cohousing of sorts.  But they are comprised of 
people with whom I share no interests, no common background.  I would be 
very uncomfortable living with these nice and good people in areas of the 
city I'd be afraid to live in.

That's what seems to exist in affordable cohousing.  I want to live in 
something that is a bit more rural or, if in city, in Manhattan or 
somewhere in city but where there are trees and flowers.  (I currently 
live in a high-rise, very authoritarianly run "co-op" in the midst of a 
concrete "jungle."  There is no community, no association, no democracy.
But I won't move unless I move somewhere more appealing re 
interconnection and beauty and quiet, or if Manhattan, sophistication and 
the arts nearby.

Has anyone thought about funding to help people enter extant or forming 
coho communities?  I'm searching, just started, but so far I've come up 
empty.  But if I continue to come up empty (and I'm a naif re all this) 
and no one more knowledgeable helps with this quest, I'm condemned to 
this two and a half room apartment (I'm thankful I have it), where 
isolation abounds and is getting to me. I can go weeks without having any 
meaningful 
face-to-face contact (i.e., till a friend and I go out together).  
There's the phone and email but while fine, I'm a face-to-face kind of 
person.  I was happies living in a small college town in NC, where 
everyday you'd bump into some of the same people, which allowed me to 
have multiple communities of people.  Even when I was in school in a 
large city and had many friends, the ecology didn't allow for the social 
reinforcement of acquaintance small areas promote.  
The high-rise SHOULD be a small area, but not so.  It is amazing.

This is not a good situation.  To want and even need coho and not be able 
to pay for it. And I know I am not alone in this predicament.

Judith Wisdom   wisdom [at] pobox.upenn.edu