Cohousing-L Mailing List: How is your community reacting in positive ways to the economic downturn?

[Joani Blank (joani]

Coho/US is getting phone calls these days from press people all over  
the country who want to know about how the economic downturn and housing 
crisis are affecting cohousing communities.  We all know the bad news 
(resales are slow partly because there are so many foreclosed houses 
around at half the price and partly because mortgages aren't all that 
easy to get; those who want to buy a resale house or be the first owner 
of a unit in a new community can't sell their existing home; etc. 
etc.).  But there is good "spin" to be had too, such has how valuable it 
can be to live in community in hard times, as well as specific examples 
of what communities (or individuals within communities) may be doing 
collectively to help individuals as well as the whole community to 
weather the downturn. 

As the "first responder" to most of the Coho/US voicemails that are 
generated by our  website, I'm posting here a request that you let me 
(and all of us) know about  what is happening in your community both 
informally, and more formally such as by group agreement to help 
yourselves (individually and/or collectively) deal with the economic 
downturn. Many of those who call are interested primarily in the housing 
aspects of the downturn, but our interest is broader than that. So bring 
it on.

Let me give you one example from my own community, Swan's Market 
Cohousing in Oakland . There is a proposal under discussion by our HOA 
to set up a sort of reserve fund , actually a very low interest  loan 
fund, to help out an owner who becomes unable to pay homeowners' dues 
for up to a full year, probably because he or she has lost his/her job. 
How this reserve fund would be funded is still under discussion.  The 
original proposal suggested a mandatory assessment of $15 a month per 
household. Alternates that have been suggested are a voluntary 
assessment, or a monthly payment that would be calculated based on the 
number of employed adults in the household or family size or some other 
factor. Or it might so,simply be a voluntary assessment in whatever 
dollar amount individual households felt they could afford to contribute.

An individual example would be one household agreeing to pay the HOA 
dues of another household under whatever agreement the two worked out. 
It could be a loan, a gift or part one and part the other. Or the 
household  need of assistance might be able offer to do some work or 
other kind of assistance in exchange for the financial help.

Postings about any ways in which living in community....living in your 
community.... enhances a sense of well-being in direct response to the 
economic downturn would be most welcome.

Please do post your response to the list, but I'd appreciate your cc:ing 
me joani [at] cohousing.org because I don't read the coho-l  digest every day.

Joani Blank
Oakland, CA