Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: economic Class and Cohousing

['Judith Wisdom (wisdom]

It may be impossible.  It may thus be unrealistic.  And yet it doesn't at 
least to me seem nuts or foolish to think that the social idealism that 
cohousing often if not always represents (in its desire to live more 
sweetly with the land, with our resources, and with our neighbors) would 
also mean that coho communities might find ways to help/welcome/integrate 
the less than financially privileged, whereas you wouldn't expect that 
from anomic middle and upper middle class neigbhorhoods.

That is, if the will to do so is there.

Maybe it cannot be done.  Maybe the will isn't strong enough.  But if the 
good that cohousing represents is to be extended to those who don't have 
the wherewithall to obtain mortgages and all the other costs involved in 
home ownership and community then it is cohousing communities that will 
have to find a way.

I've said this before but I think it needs to be said here, maybe.  In 
small communities struggling with new social formations and relationships 
it might be difficult to absorb people from a hugely wide diversity of 
class backgrounds.

But bad economic straits aren't always accompanied by class differences.  
The concept of class includes more than just money.  To use a case 
example of one (me), I'm flat broke because I had the bad luck to get 
sick before I had stashed away large sums (which happens when you get 
sick before normal retirement age, and, as we know it happens plenty at 
retirement).  Had that not happened I'd be in the pink, given the 
profession I was in and my level of education.  Instead I was cast, after 
using all my savings to supplement disability income, into the virtually 
nonexistent safety net.  

I am willing to talk about me because I am not a unique case by a long 
shot.  Chronic illness or a disabling injury will do that.

And then there are artists and writers and such.

I think what this thread is at least partially about is whether or not 
the progressive social tendencies emboddied in cohousing can be extended 
to those who can't afford it.  Whether there is a will.  And whether 
there's a way.

I'm not sure it need be cast in terms of capitalism, market economies, 
socialism, or the like (although it certainly can).  But I don't think it 
can be avoided that regardless of intention, the very best of intentions, 
that much cohousing is not without certain contradicitions: i.e., a 
social interactive progressive idealism that embodies inclusion, 
neighborliness raised to a far higher level that is usually seen, and 
other modes to combat isolation and anomie yet at the same time being 
excluding of those who don't have the jack.

No great insight here.  Something we all know.  But it is, in my mind, 
not something to sweep under the rug, as many are not, or to see as an 
insurmountable issue as long as we live in a market economy or are not 
forming Red Brigades.

And for anyone thinking this as they read, let me tell you I took this 
position on other issues when I WAS in the pink, both in terms of health 
and money.  I've never been terrifically comfortable with being a have 
when there are have nots although I adore comfort and beauty and ease.  
In fact I'm at heart a rather material girl.

Judith  Wisdom