Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Development Financial Structure

[Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddess]

I think the demand for money right away discourages community building. We
are an extreme example, but some of our members didn't know if they would
have the money to buy until months before move in. And this, after being in
the group for almost five years!

It could lead very easily to the group falling apart, IMO, since it would
scare away lots of potential members and you might not be able to get all
the financing you need anyway. Why should strangers have to pony up cash for
something that may never come to fruition? Giving people money requires
trust, and you need to build community to have trust.

This getting money up front trend is disturbing to me. The very people
responsible for bringing cohousing to the rest of the world, Chuck and
Katie, are involved in a new group that requires people to pay up after only
THREE MEETINGS. This is insane. Let's assume they accomplish their goal of
getting this built quickly with this strategy. What will they have? Very
nice houses in a "good" neighborhood. That is all. And homogeneous? You bet.

I'm not saying it takes five years to build a community, or that it should.
But if your only focus is on getting money, you can't build community.
Getting it built fast is not the be-all and end-all of cohousing.
-- 
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California
tamgoddess [at] attbi.com
> From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> Reply-To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 22:40:13 -0500
> To: "cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_Development Financial Structure
> 
> On 11/17/02 11:26 AM, "Diana Porter" <porterd [at] cinci.rr.com> wrote:
> 
>> Does this upfront money discourage  too many people from considering
>> co-housing?
> 
> Yes, because very few people have the spare cash to float in limbo for the
> length of time it takes to get a project off the ground.
> 
> When you begin depending on people to be "real" in terms of being able to
> support the project, you need to know if they can be mortgage approved. They
> may already own a home and will not want to sell their home until they are
> ready to move into their new home. They may have adequate income but not
> enough money to loan the project money for an indeterminate period of time.
> 
> Sharon
> -- 
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
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