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

[Joelyn Malone (JKMalone]

At Monterey Cohousing Community we have very cautiously and with a lot 
of forethought, made a loan to an individual out of our reserve funds 
when the interest rate and term of his existing loan made it impossible 
to meet the monthly payment requirements as well as pay his monthly 
dues. He got a lower interest rate, extended over a longer period of 
time. We got the benefit of a higher interest rate return on our money 
than we would have gotten in a traditional "safe" investment. The fact 
that we'd  known him a long time and he is a trusted member of the 
community  helped a lot. 

In another situation, as we were dealing with construction cost 
over-runs and unanticipated assessments being required of everyone, one 
of our members made contact with an anonymous donor who made a generous 
contribution, with the stipulation that it be used to help pay the 
assessments of some of our very low-income residents who really couldn't 
afford them. There was a small committee set up, and an application 
process that was kept very confidential so that anyone could apply no 
matter what the reason they felt they weren't able to handle their 
assessment. We have some very philanthropic families in the Minneapolis- 
St Paul area with interests in liberal social causes, so this didn't 
seem totally out of the blue.We never learned the name of the 
benefactor, but some of us suspect that it was actually one or more of 
our own members, doing this in a way that those getting the grants would 
not feel a sense of obligation to other members.

(Like many cohousing communities, we did not have access to public 
affordable housing programs so we did "bootstrap financing" to get the 
community built. Because we have a cooperative ownership structure with 
a single umbrella mortgage, people could come in at different down 
payment levels including some with no down payment.)