Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: USA TODAY article/low cost

[Robert Schrader (rms]

At 04:19 AM 7/16/97 -0500, David Mandel wrote:

> {snip}
>But the lack of any mention of cohousing as a useful idea for lower-income
>housing development -- or any mention of the many communities that have
>struggled long and hard for a way to make that a reality -- leaves a sour
>taste with me. {snip}

I'm a refugee from a failed attempt at cohousing here in San Diego in 89/90.
It was promoted partly as low-cost and partly as community-oriented.

We had one member who owned several developable acres, and lots of people
interested, but when the time came for all of the other members to put up
money, the *majority* could not produce their share.  The whole venture
then collapsed.

Promoting cohousing as low-cost recruits too many who are financially
marginal.  The whole project is then on shaky ground from the start.
All it takes to collapse it is one big stumpling block -- in our case
it was the 1990 recession.

Please note that I am not trying to say that cohousing is not low cost,
nor am I trying to disparage the efforts of those who have made it so.
I simply think that we should be thankful that USA-Today did not mention it.

Robert Schrader