Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: affordable housing

[Shava Nerad (shava]

>    What if it's made clear from the beginning that every cohousing
> unit contributes twenty five dollors a month to the affordable
> housing pot. In my opinion from my experience in cohousing-if you
> can afford cohousing you can afford 25 extra a month, above and
> beyond the monthly fees. 

Well, first you'd need to incorporate and find a lawyer to keep the 
group from being sued by people who drop out and want the money refunded...
That's probably a minimum of $300-500.  (First we kill all the lawyers)

That aside...

>   OK-so thats six thousand dollars coming in a year from a twenty
> unit place.

You could up that by saying that there is a sliding scale of $1/(thousand
of yearly household income)/month.  So a family with one person working,
with an income of $22,000, would pay $22/mo, whereas a family with two
lawyers, say, making $96,000/yr, would pay in $96/mo.  This would make it
more equitable for families that have small children to join the coho
group even if they were currently low income.  (And, yes, I'm a 
professional engineer, and would end up paying more than $25/mo, so I'm
not just saying this because I'd make out...!)

I think it's a neat idea.  It's the coho equivalent, in some ways, of
the small business loan funds that a lot of asian neighborhood associations
come up with -- everyone donates $x to a central fund, and it's used, in
turn, by members -- usually by getting a proposal accepted by the group --
to start small businesses.  As soon as the money is paid back, another
round of proposals is made.  I mean, it's not the same thing, but it does
require the same level of trust.  The groups I've heard of do this without
contracts or lawyers, but they have strong cultural ties.

Even in the most intentionally chartered communities, when we are inventing
community, I have seen that people fall away from each other too easily.
Having been thru a few sad dissolutions, I'd make sure that a lawyer
reviewed a formal agreement, even if there wasn't a "watertight" contract.
People can write their own contracts -- I, for example, wrote a loan 
contract for the loan on my car, which a friend paid off before I went
from NC to OR, so that I can pay him instead of the bank.  It works, and
will probably never be relevant, because it'll be paid off on schedule.
But all you could need would be for a suit to come in to get your books
audited saying that you -- say -- were getting this money as income, 
rather than in trust, and so it should be taxed.  Because if people can't
take their money out, it's income to the coho group, I think, not an
escrow or trust arrangement.

Any lawyers out there?  I promise I'll only snipe in good humor! ;)

Anyway, I think it's a neat idea; I'm only playing devil's advocate...

Shava Nerad
shava [at] ns.uoregon.edu