Cohousing-L Mailing List: Affordable/Low Income options: Crowd source article needed- A US Cohousing Wiki?

[Pare Gerou (paregerou]

The topic of affordable cohousing is of interest to a great many of us, and
we have rich resources in David Mandel, Chris ScotHanson, Sharon Villines,
and so many others.  I wish there was a US Cohousing Wiki where people
could crowd source an article on the subject authored by those with
knowledge (complete with links to communities that have attempted or
succeeded using the particular vehicle for affordability would make the
article even more useful). I would think a Wiki would be very cohousing(y).
In addition to the great information on Land Trusts, I have taken the
liberty of reprinting an email from Chris ScotHanson I thought organized
the basic list of affordability options -- I know it can take time to dig
into the archives, and emails on this subject are scattered. Has the topic
of a cohousing wiki ever been discussed?
Pare Gerou


Chris ScottHanson cscotthanson [at] mac.com via
<https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en> cohousing.org
Feb 11
to Cohousing-l
Affordable Cohousing

A SELECTION OF IDEAS FOR CREATING MORE AFFORDABILITY IN YOUR COMMUNITY
[submitted to cohousing-l in weekly installments, for comment and input.]

You’re probably tired of hearing about smaller units, standardization,
simple unit plans, modest finishes, all with the goal of achieving more
affordability.  Well it’s true, these all help, but there are other
affordability strategies that are based on interpersonal relationships,
community, and trust, that can be just as effective, if not more so.

The strategies outlined in the series to follow have been collected over
the past 25 years of doing cohousing projects across the US and Canada.
Many of the strategies outlined below are what I call “internal banking.”
 These internal banking relationships are magical when they happen, and it
would seem they can only happen when there is a strong sense of  community,
and trust.

Each of these has been used successfully in one project or another.  The
vast majority of cohousing projects that have been built in North America
have included a number of internal banking elements which have allowed
members with some resources to assist members with more limited resources
to participate in the community.

There are two primary ways of purchasing your home in cohousing.  In the
simplest form, these are: 1) an all cash purchase, or 2) a mortgage from a
bank, usually requiring some downpayment from the purchaser.  The mortgage
is called a “take out loan” by the construction lender because it takes
them out, paying off their loan to build the project.

Your cohousing group can adopt some or all of the following strategies for
achieving a measure of affordability within your project.  Some of these
strategies work for some people.  Others work for other people.  Some of
these strategies need to work together.  It all depends on needs,
circumstances, pride, personal relationships, trust, liquidity, risk
willingness, risk aversion, and/or time sensitive financial needs.

1. Internal Down Payment Assistance
2. Outside Down Payment Assistance
3. Second Mortgages
4. Co-purchase Options
5. First Time Buyers
6. The Reduced Monthly Condo Fee Subsidy.
7. Maintenance Reserve Reinvestment
8. Unit Price Buy Down
9. Design for Affordability - Capital Costs and Operating Costs
10.  Shared Units
11.  Community Owned Rental Unit
12.  Participating Nonresident Owners
13.  Purchase of One or More Units by an Outside Affordable Housing Entity

In the coming weeks I will submit to cohousing-l an explanation of each of
these strategies.  I hope, if you’re interested, that you will comment,
edit, expand or help explain how each of these strategies can contribute to
making cohousing more affordable, to more people.  Share your stories and
we can add them to the shared wisdom.


Chris ScottHanson
Urban Cohousing Associates, Inc. <http://www.urbancohousingassociates.com/>
Land Acquisition, Development Consulting & Project Management
Ecovillages, Cohousing & Sustainable Communities
On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 4:19 PM, David Mandel <dlmandel [at] gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Thanks all for the constructive debate.
>
> To reiterate more explicitly part of what I said:
> In today's social-economic paradigm, owning a house is seen not only as a
> obtaining a home but as an investment, a means of accumulating individual
> wealth -- sometime the latter given more importance than the former. This
> is fostered by many public policies (e.g. lack of rent control and eviction
> protection; (environmentally disastrous as well) zoning favoring single
> family homes; unlimited tax deductions for mortgage interest for
> owner-occupants and landlords alike, retrograde property tax systems ...
> and more. This distorts and undermines healthy social relationships,
> creates precariousness and instability for most low-income people who have
> no choice but to rent and severely limits mobility for lower-middle income
> people who do manage to buy but may be locked in to what they have due to
> economic necessity and legal restrictions.
>
> Decent, affordable housing needs to become recognized as a human right for
> all and not a means to accumulate individual wealth. There are plenty of
> others ways to accomplish the latter, though I'd like to think it would
> diminish in importance (an obsession, really) under the social revolution
> that would transform housing and that needs to make other basic human needs
> -- a job, living wages, healthcare, education, culture, etc. -- into
> guaranteed rights as well.
>
> Of course it will be a long-term struggle to achieve this, and I accept
> that meanwhile we need to take small steps that can make lives better
> within the existing oppressive system. But I believe it's important not to
> lose sight of the big picture -- and to design/adopt small steps that will
> more likely promote the larger transformation that's needed.
>
> A good positive example is community land trusts as co-owners and providers
> of affordable housing, as described by Ann. They are permanent, as opposed
> to many other forms of subsidy, don't require much if any further subsidy
> after initial formation, and can be designed to enable modest accumulation
> of individual wealth as long as that's a high value under capitalism. Land
> trusts truly create affordable housing one or a few at a time, but if they
> take off and proliferate, as they have in some places (Vermont is another
> example), the change can start becoming qualitative.
>
> Does anyone have experience using the land trust model in a condominium
> development, which is most typical for cohousing? It's possible that the
> limited equity co-op model, which can accomplish similar results, is more
> appropriate.
>
> David Mandel, Sacramento (Southside Park Cohousing)
>
> On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 8:28 AM, Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > I appreciate the good thinking and writing by those commenting on this
> > thread about low-income cohousing,
> >
> > One of the things I observed in Denmark at a community that was built at
> > the barest level because all of its members were “low income” (whatever
> > that means in Denmark) was the community’s inability to move beyond its
> > bare status.  The community members said they labored under the inability
> > to improve anything or add anything.
> >
> > A mixed income community allows the community as a whole to keep moving
> > forward.
> >
> > A solution I think has great merit …which may have already been mentioned
> > … is putting all the “low income” or “affordable” units in a land trust
> > PERMANENTLY with restrictions on resales PERMANENTLY.  This has
> apparently
> > worked very well in North Carolina which has an active and expanding Land
> > Trust system.  Some owners in the land trust actually move from one land
> > trust to another they like it so much.   The beauty of the NC system as I
> > remember is that it can be a land trust of one to multiple to all houses
> in
> > a community.  It’s spread over the whole state.
> >
> > I really don’t believe grouping all low income into one neighborhood is a
> > good idea if the units are to remain low income or affordable.  Isn’t
> that
> > how income ghettos develop?
> >
> > PS — not clipping any of this thread as I think it’s too rich to
> truncate …
> >
> > Best --
> >
> > Ann Zabaldo
> > Takoma Village Cohousing
> > Washington, DC
> > Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
> > Falls Church, VA
> > 703.688.2646
> >
> > > On Sep 23, 2015, at 9:46 AM, Sharon Villines <
> sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> On Sep 22, 2015, at 1:04 PM, David Mandel <dlmandel [at] gmail.com> 
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>  - Getting into a community is a great first step for a low-income
> > >>  household. But expenses of upkeep and improvements tend to increase
> > with
> > >>  time, and a community dominated by market rate buyers may tend to tax
> > >>  itself more and more without considering the effect on less
> financially
> > >>  able neighbors, or to adopt policies like paying more in lieu of
> doing
> > >>  work, ostensibly allowing choice -- but in fact, only for those who
> can
> > >>  afford it. Consciousness of promoting affordability, therefore, must
> be
> > >>  sustained beyond initial purchase.
> > >
> > > This is exactly why I think a community has to be built as a low income
> > community from the start and not an economically diverse community.
> > Diversity is like a rubber band. Wonderfully adaptable until it is
> > stretched too far. Both middle and low income households have
> expectations,
> > requirements, and interests that can cause conflict. In the long run the
> > groups become a burden to each other when forced to live by the same
> rules
> > at home. “At home” is the factor that changes the weight of equality.
> "It’s
> > in my home that I have to live with things the way other people live with
> > them."
> > >
> > > To range from affordable to market rate is a 20% range in diversity. To
> > include low income is a 40%+ range, but is actually much more. There is a
> > threshold of basic income that all households have to meet. Discretionary
> > spending in a low income household is all but non-existent. There is no
> > margin for monthly condo fee creep. A 3% increase that the typical
> > cohousing owner expects every year is a significant burden for low income
> > households. Their incomes only grow when they take a second or third job.
> > >
> > >> Probably the best existing means to guarantee permanent affordability
> > is to
> > >> have individual homes be part of a nonprofit community land trust,
> with
> > >> ownership bifurcated between real estate and improvements -- though I
> > >> suppose it would be tricky to do this with a condominium community.
> > >
> > > The problem with non-ownership, restrictions on resale prices, and
> > subsidies is that low income people also need to build a sustainable
> > future. We had a family move to Takoma Village as renters from a
> community
> > in California (not cohousing) that was a non-ownership model. They had
> > physically built their home themselves and helped others build theirs.
> But
> > unless they stayed, they had no financial benefit from that. In their
> late
> > 50s they had no equity to purchase anywhere else.  When they moved closer
> > to a better musical education for their daughter, they had a much lower
> > standard of living and were having difficulty providing the musical
> > education their daughter for which they had moved.
> > >
> > > The best way to limit prices is to build to the price. Still everything
> > that goes up, goes up. It’s called capitalism. Why shouldn’t low income
> > people have the same ability to become self-sustaining as other
> households?
> > >
> > > In Manhattan there are huge numbers of rent-controlled and subsidized
> > apartments. City-owned housing projects that are every bit as nice as
> > market-rate housing. They not only have upper limits on income but lower
> > limits as well—some are designed for middle income households. Many of
> them
> > much larger and nicer than most of us could afford. (Mia Farrow has one
> on
> > Central Park with many bedrooms and paid less than the rent for a 500 SF
> > apartment in much less desirable neighborhoods.) The system is open to
> > abuse and aids those who certainly don’t need it as well as those who do.
> > Incomes are measured when you enter the system, and not checked later.
> Once
> > in, you are in. But you are also trapped in the system, just like the
> > homeless.
> > >
> > > I think there must be better ways to help people participate in the
> > economy and to build sustainable lifestyles. Different architecture,
> > different living standards, and understanding economics is one way to
> make
> > housing more available. If the household from California had both built
> > their house and owned it, they would have also been building enough
> > personal wealth to establish a sustainable lifestyle elsewhere. Like the
> > rest of the people who own houses.
> > >
> > > Cohousing developments are real estate developments that significantly
> > create wealth. But we need to figure out how to build wealth for the low
> > income household as well as the middle income household. Income
> inequality
> > has to be fixed as well but all we can do here is focus on what we can do
> > today. Protesting in the streets won’t house anyone right now.
> > >
> > > Sharon
> > > ----
> > > Sharon Villines
> > > Sociocracy: A Deeper Democracy
> > > http://www.sociocracy.info
> > >
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
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