Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Workshare

[Jenny Guy (jenstermeister]

Thanks Sharon, Diana and Don for such thoughtful replies!

Basically, we all agree that couples shouldn't get a free pass at the
expense of singles, and Sharon I strongly agree with you that, when you
give anyone a break, you're putting more work on the shoulders of someone
else. That is a concept that took years for the group as a whole to accept.
Our pay or play policy is an attempt to make work the same as money in our
community: if you want to help out a member in need, by doing their work or
giving them money, of course that's wonderful, and it's a choice.

We made the decision to give people with young children a break in an
(unsuccessful)
attempt to attract people with kids. Personally, I'm fine with being part
of a... what's the phrase... de-facto senior cohousing, but some of our
members really long to have the little ones around, and I'm fine with that,
too.

One reason we were considering giving couples a break is that currently,
when a household invests a big chunk of money and becomes part of our
community, they can't move into a unit for an unknown amount of time. Of
our 9 units, 8 have pre-existing tenants, and the 9th is occupied by one of
our members. A large part of the work that needs to be done is managing and
fixing up our run-down rental property.  The benefit we'll all get from
this work, in addition to being part of a community, is that our investment
will grow in value, both because it will gradually turn into cohousing, and
because we're using sweat equity to fix the place up.

So, should the sweat equity be by household, since investment is by
household? We could break the 20 hours up into 10 hours of community
activities (meals, meetings) and 10 hours of property management, and say
property management is by household...

Sharon, your question of why are people joining a community and not making
room for it in their lives is an excellent one.