Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordable cohousing

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi folks,

Miscellaneous comments here in response to recent postings concerning 
affordability:

There really are lots of community options out there, quite a variety of 
them.  Unfortunately, they are not necessarily easy to find.  They are not 
all organized into one big website or resource.  FIC certainly comes 
closest with its Communities Directory and www.ic.org.  However, we at FIC 
are well aware that there are many more places out there than the ones that 
choose to list with us--we estimate we are listing no more than 50% of 
intentional communities.  We have lots more in our database that choose not 
to be publicly identified, and we know there are more that we don't have in 
our database.  Let alone all the situations out there that have some 
community elements without being full-fledged, self-identified, intentional 
communities.  So you still need to ask around and do your own research, 
network with knowledgeable people in the place you want to live--there is 
no replacement for word of mouth.

On top of that, there still aren't as many communities in the US (of all 
kinds) as i wish there were or think there should be.  Robert Putnam, 
author of Bowling Alone, spoke here in Eugene yesterday.  For those who 
aren't familiar with his work, he researches how civic engagement has 
declined over the past 40 years in the US and promotes ideas of what he 
thinks could be done about it.  After his talk i asked him about community 
living and cohousing as one way to increase involvement.  Putnam was 
familiar with it, had even visited a few places.  But because the total 
number of people living in community is still so low (well under 1% of 
Americans), he didn't see it as creating the kind of shift in society he 
thinks needs to happen.

I appreciate the significant efforts toward affordability that some 
cohousing communities have made . . . while recognizing that at this time 
most cohousing units are still too expensive for most Americans.  Rather 
than being down on existing communities for that, i'd rather we focus on 
sharing strategies that have worked to create affordability (such as recent 
postings on partnering with Habitat for Humanity, holding aside some units 
at below market rate, etc.).  I'm thrilled about all the cohousing 
communities that have succeeded in getting built.  Let's think about how to 
do even better in the future.

Alberta wrote:
> I want to live in a dorm style situation.  I love cooking, but I sure as 
> heck have a whole lotta other things I want to do other than cook for 
> myself all the time.  So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if there 
> can be a way to create apartment/studio living in or on the transit lines 
> leading into the city and have an intentional community foundation to it.

One community you may want to know about is Apex Belltown Co-op in 
Seattle.  Members there have dorm rooms, and then bathrooms and kitchens 
that serve groups of dorm rooms, all in one big building right downtown.  I 
don't recall what the equity arrangements are, but my impression was that 
the monthly fees were comparable to other rentals in the city.

I have the impression that N Street Cohousing in Davis, CA is a lot less 
expensive to buy into than most cohousing communities.  Members there were 
willing to settle for houses that were older and smaller, rather than 
building something fancy new.  It's all about trade-offs.

Personally as folks who know me know, i am very content living in a limited 
equity co-op.  I live in a large, rambling house near the university.  Each 
of the 9 of us at Walnut St. has our own bedroom, and we share the 
kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, and other common areas.  We eat together 
5 nights a week, and have house meetings once a week.  We vary in age from 
20 to 60 and have sometimes included families with kids.  It's 
significantly more communal than cohousing, a great fit for me, wouldn't be 
suitable for folks who need more private space.  Our monthly fees are 
comparable to other housing in our town, way less money than buying one's 
own house.  In order to finance this building purchase we started a 
community revolving loan fund, where 20 friends lent us the money to 
buy--it's an alternative financing model that i highly recommend.  We 
modeled our loan fund on Los Angeles Eco-Village's.

And of course there are always the income-sharing communities of the 
Federation of Egalitarian Communities (www.thefec.org).  Members joining 
there often need no assets.  Basically you work full-time on behalf of the 
community and the community covers all your basic needs:  housing, food, 
clothing, health care, etc.

My impression is that the listserves for community living in general 
haven't cohered in the way Coho-L has, maybe that's why people end up on 
this list even when cohousing isn't necessarily exactly the match for 
them.  For Alberta & Carol & others, you could try posting on the Reach 
board at www.ic.org, which is intended to help people connect with others 
seeking to create/join/recruit for community.  I would also suggest 
checking out land trusts (some land trusts are just about preserving land, 
but there are a bunch that have people living on them, often for far less 
money than it would cost to live elsewhere).

Good luck,

--Tree

[who chooses to write with lower-case "i"s (hi Ann!) because i believe that 
the capitalization of the first person pronoun (and no other pronouns), 
which as far as i know is unique to the English language, reinforces the 
egotistic individualism of English-language speakers, whose cultures are 
wreaking havoc on the rest of the world at a rate terrible to behold]    ;-)




-----------------------------------------------

Tree Bressen
1680 Walnut St.
Eugene, OR 97403
(541) 484-1156
tree [at] ic.org
http://www.treegroup.info