Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Diversity in Cohousing

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Jessie Handforth Kome,  Eno Commons Dahako [at] aol.com
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
   http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Hi all -

Howard from River Rock wrote the following in a recent post in this thread:

"Anyway, it would not be completely unfair to say that progress on
this issue is being blocked by those who are unwilling or unable to
make that kind of an investment in their community.  (It would be
slightly unfair - our discussions on this issue are more complex
than I can really explain here, and various options such as trading
work for monetary contributions have been left out.)  We have a
consensed community value that we want to "finish off" River Rock
within 5 years, but the expenditure levels needed to do that
appear impossible to achieve.  We, collectively, say we want something
but are unwilling to pay for it.  That's a pretty juvenile attitude,
if you ask me.  I'd like to find a way to move beyond it."

At Eno Commons, we went through a very similar sticking point driven by 
income and wealth diversity in the group and came up with the following 
solution.  One of our members, L, takes donations, pledges, and low-interest 
loans to a capital fund held at Self-Help Credit Union.  Donation is 
anonymous - L is the *only* one who knows who gives how much to the capital 
fund.  She tells the group how much is available and the group decides what 
to do with the funds.  The funds waxes and wanes.  

Jessie Handforth Kome
Eno Commons
Durham, NC
Where, despite the drought, the southern native plants are blooming mightily, 
as are the roses and other tough customers.  Butterfly bushes in lavender, 
indigo and flat-out purple; daisies in yellow and white; dwarf crepe myrtle 
in white; Carolina phlox in magenta; roses in pink; trumpet vine in red (with 
hummingbirds); hops in green.



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