Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 42, Issue 11

[Cher S-P (cherworks01]

Affordability efforts are GOOD.

Still, the gap between formal affordability and full prices is a vast black 
hole. As retirees on a fixed income, we fall just outside (less than $50/mo) 
all states' affordability criteria, even after applying every possible legal 
strategy. We did visit Silver Sage while it was under construction, and 
numerous other communities, too, but we remain financially on the outside where 
cohousing is concerned. We have come close, but stretching as far as possible, 
don't make it financially in places that work in other ways (with our health 
care insurance; with affordable public transit for visiting widespread family; 
with good vibes with values and residents). Some near-misses have been fairly 
painful, leaving us perpetually "homesick" for the people and places we left 
behind after our visits. (You know who you are.) Now, we are taking a break in 
our search, partly in order to come to terms with reality. Don't know what the 
future will hold, but I'm sure there are many, many people
 who would make good cohousing neighbors, who will like us need to settle for 
something else. Such is life. 

Meanwhile we applaud all of the affordability efforts, while wondering about 
the social structure underlying some such communities, where people will 
continue to live at opposite ends of the discretionary-income continuum, with a 
wide gap in between.  It's kind of a social experiment -- some will be made to 
work, we think, and some won't.

Re: "We currently have two affordable and two market-rate units available...  
860 sq ft, priced just under  
$120,000; market-rate units 2100 sq ft (about half of that is finished space), 
and are priced in the $500,000 range."

Cher