Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: diversity and membership start-up dues

[David Mandel (dlmandel]

    You might start by asking what is the money being collected going toward. If
it's just for the maintenance of your group's general activities, 
communications,
etc., well I agree the gaps sound rather drastic, but they do indicate a
commitment to economic diversity, which is admirable (IMHO, anyway). Personally,
I think it might feel less rigid at this early stage to not set such hard
categories (as you describe it, there's a tremendous gap in dues between someone
who makes $80,000 and someone else who makes $80,001, for instance) but instead
1) to set a goal of how much you need to collect to meet your needs, divide by
the number of members, announce this is the average you need to collect from 
each
one and encourage people to set their own dues within a given range of, say,
twice that average to half the average, according to self-defined ability to pay
(a term more flexible than strictly income, taking into account also assets and
expenses). Then check to see whether the pledged amounts meet the needs and if
not, encourage everyone who can to up their pledge a little.
    In any event, the amounts are relatively small, so I really think it's a
matter of what your group feels comfortable with and how drastic you need to be
to attract lower-income members, which I assume is the motivation for such gaps
as exist in the proposed schedule.
    Once you get to a more advanced stage of collecting serious investments to
make the project financially viable, it's a different story. If you want to
attract and keep low-income members, you need to avoid the pitfall of many 
groups
that insist on a large minimum investment. As long as you collectively raise
enough (look to outside sources, too, including family and friends, plus public
housing authorities if you have a serious commitment to providing some 
affordable
housing), the amounts actually invested by members can vary tremendously as long
as there's a mechanism in place -- as binding as your state law will allow --
that whatever is invested is credited toward down payment, with excess earning a
fair return. In our pre-construction and construction period, we collectively
invested nearly $500,000, with amounts ranging from a few hundred to around
$80,000.
    Later on, you can have the debate all over again when you determine monthly
fees of residents/owners. Our schedule doesn't take income into account 
directly,
but then we have a separate capital fund, to which monthly payments starting
1/1/00 will range from $2 to $20 per household.
    See also my outline on affordability, reachable through the cohousing web
site. And good luck.

David Mandel, Southside Park, Sacramento

Tonka444 [at] aol.com wrote:

> Hello--
>
> I am a member of a relatively new cohousing group in Hartford, CT.  We are
> currently 12 households and have been meeting since July.
>
> Up until now there has been no membership dues but that is about to change
> and the membership committee has set up some guidelines for what they think
> would be a fair monthly dues (to cover basic expenses, no land yet).
>
> My group wants to attract as diverse a crowd as possible and think that this
> dues schedule should support economic diversity as well.  Anyway, this is the
> schedule proposed:
>
> a.  Unit income up to $40,000 is charged $1.00 a meeting.
> b.  Unit income from 40,001 to 80,000 is $5.00 a meeting
> c.  Unit income from 80,01 to 100,000 is $20.00 a meeting
> d.  Unit income over 101,000 is $30.00 a meeting.
>
> I should add that we meet twice a month for general meetings.
>
> I am not sure if I like this.  I would be paying 40 dollars a month while
> another household would be paying 2.  I wanted to check with the list and see
> if there was an income scale for dues in other communities or if it was just
> a flat fee a month.
>
> Let me add that I too want our community to be as diverse as possible.  I do
> not have a problem paying the money and frankly would put up much more but I
> feel slightly resentful of the wide gap in dues.
>
> Two dollars a month does not seem like much of a commitment.  Any help from
> the list would be appreciated.
>
> Shelly DeMeo
> Greater Hartford Cohousing