Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordable / rental cohousing

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

In her reply Ann Zabaldo:
http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg36191.html
expresses concern about partnering with government:
> If you get $$ from a municipality you can believe the
> government is going have some say so in renting the homes.

or

> about having the developer retain ownership of units in
> your community

and how this would affect governance of the community.

Note that the latter is different from partnering with a non-profit
affordable housing developer to retain ownership of units as rental.

Yes, clearly care must be taken in partnering with other organizations.
I cited how it is important to get agreement that the community would
have a reasonable role recruiting people who would be involved in the
community.

Thank you to Wendy and Jerome for posting about
Partnerships for Affordable Cohousing, Inc. (PFAC)
http://www.affordablecohousing.org
see also messages about PFAC:
1) http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg36121.html
2) http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg36219.html

(Note that I put a link to PFAC on the Cohousing-L Resources page
 http://l.cohousing.org )

One useful thing PFAC could do is develop a model agreement between
a community and a partner organization that made a reasonable tradeoff
between the needs of each.  Including for example the issue
of how affordable units are marketed / and renters chosen.

In 2) Wendy states:
> The biggest obstacle to making these relationships productive is the
> widely-held notion that cohousing is not affordable.

A related issue is reluctance to develop anything beyond basic
housing but some non profits build "supportive housing".

As the large Twin Cities nonprofit, PPL ( "owns or manages a portfolio
of more than 1,000 units of affordable or supportive housing" ) states
on their website:

 Supportive housing combines rental subsidy with supportive services to
 help people who face complex challenges live with stability, autonomy,
 and dignity.
 http://www.ppl-inc.org/the-hub/housing/ppl-supportive-housing-programs

This would seem to make an opening to argue that cohousing was a form of
housing that provides a kind of support also worthy of their involvement.

(NOTE: "supportive housing" and cohousing offer very different levels
and kinds of support; it would be a major mistake to imply that cohousing
could substitute for the kinds of major support the "supportive housing"
provides.)

I long ago discussed cohousing with Joe Selvaggio, the founder of PPL,
and got little interest but PPL has come a long ways since then.
Maybe they would be more recptive now.

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org         My org:
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