Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Cohousing and "career-dislocated isolation"

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Roger Ruhle raised some interesting ideas of the sociology of modern
cultures dissoluton of extended family and cohousings potential to regain
some of the support network of extended family.

This certainly seems to be true from my experience. There is lots of
potential for available support, seemlessly integrated into your
neighborhood relationships. However, the private home ownership model
inherient in cohousing, which is so attractive to the middle class, creates
large debt financial obligations so that cohousers spend most their waking
hours away from the community in order to earn the money they need to pay
for their  mortgages.

This of course is not true everywhere,(there are a few projects that have
created low income, low mortgage situations) but the average cohousing
mortgage is not any cheaper than most other local forms of home ownership.
Last time I did a calc on cohousing resales in the NW,(which was more than a
year ago) the average unit price was $155,000.  With 10% down this equals a
monthly mortage/tax/insurance debt of about $1300 a month at current
interest rates.

So in that regard, when you compare cohousing to other, non-bank financed
communities, you find cohousing has much higher living costs with less
member time availability. When I have visited and informally interviewed
cohousers one common thread is that there are more things to do than people
to do them, even in communities with 40-50 adults. This time limitation
reality check often induces cohousing residents to hire other people to do
things which they don't have the time to do themselves, such as clean the
common building, or put in the landscaping.

So cohousing has become the "monied class" of the communities movement, and
that engenders some interesting commentary from the rest of the communities
movement who live much more cheaply and simply. This class distinction is
very evident from my experiences, since I bridge both worlds, and it's
unfortunate to say the least.

On place where both worlds come together is the NICA spring gatherings, this
year hosted at my place, Sharingwood, April 10th. Always an interesting day.
Check out the website at http://www.infoteam.com/nonprofit/nica for details

Rob Sandelin
Northwest Intentional Communties Association
Building a better society, one neighborhood at a time