Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordable Unites Lotteries

[Joani Blank (joani]

As usual, Liz (quoted below) has wise words. But it's not always just a 
matter of getting the city to agree to let you prequalify individual 
households before they are allowed to buy. Affordable housing restrictions 
also require (as I understand it) not only that the housing be built before 
it is even offered for sale or rent, meaning that the households who are 
eventually going to move in cannot participate in the design process and 
cannot be a part of the community building processes that go on before 
construction is complete.

A lottery is indeed a fair way to assure that no one is discriminated 
against, or that no one has an unfair advantage because they know the 
someone who works at the housing authority, or because they are a 
particular color, or.......

I think what would be fair and still let lower income households into 
cohousing would be to let the pool of possible residents know what is 
involved in living in cohousing (including the fact that they have to be 
willing and able to devote some time and energy to the process of getting 
it built).  Then all those still interested could be prequalified based not 
only on their financial situation, but also on their willingness to agree 
to some minimal standards of participation.  Then, among those still 
remaining as interested, there could be a lottery which would assure no 
discrimination.

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing
Oakland, CA


> I would strongly discourage that method of selling the affordable units. See
> if you can make a deal with the city that your group will pre-qualify the
> buyers of those units. the history of people getting into cohousing just for
> the affordability is not good-it's dismal, in fact. We had one person who
> caused us much grief before moving out. If we had had ten of them, we would
> not have survived as a cohousing community.
>
> Try to explain the nature of cohousing to the city and see if there's
> someone sympathetic to your plans for cohousing. Let them know that there is
> a poor history of success where price is the only motivation. Maybe you can
> get someone to listen.


_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l