Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: How do communities deal with members who can't pay their condo fees or assessments?

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

In my life experience working with very poor people (homeless and at risk of 
homelessness) they make the same bad choices I do. "Bad" being prioritizing 
something different than I would choose.

Rather than listing all the bad ways folk might use a fund, I like the idea of 
no-questions-asked for the money and that you can use the fund a second time if 
you've paid back the money from the first time.

I expect that it is rare that a coho community can afford to help someone stay 
in housing that they really *can't* afford on an on-going basis. But we can 
cover the gap if they can afford it except-for-this-one-problem.

No interest loans *are* a help to keep a property you can afford, but are 
barely squeaking by, especially if there is not a time limit on the loans. One 
bad hospital bill is enough to break a tight situation if you have to take out 
a loan at interest, or worse, just keep paying all your bills plus the one-time 
one. 

Massachusetts has a rental assistance program that is highly effective--it pays 
an average of $600 per household to help them stay in their home---and about 
90% of those that ask for it never need it again. (Payments tend to be for 
heating oil, hospital bills, mortgage payments and car loans and I believe can 
go as high as $1200.) 
(These are grants not loans and we are careful to only fund half the need in a 
given year so that we don't keep *too* many people out of homelessness.)


-Liz
(The Rev.) Elizabeth M. Magill
www.ecclesiaministriesmission.org
www.mosaic-commons.org
508-450-0431




On Feb 11, 2016, at 9:08 AM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> 
wrote:

> 
> 
>> On Feb 10, 2016, at 12:39 PM, Judith Adler <judith_adler [at] hotmail.com> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> At Cornerstone we are once again thinking of how much money we should keep 
>> in reserve, and one issue that repeatedly comes up is how we deal with 
>> members who cannot pay increasing condo fees, either because of job loss or 
>> low income. We have 4 non-market rate units and those household pay the same 
>> condo fees according to percent ownership as we all do. 
> 
> I was intrigued with the response from Jamaica Plain that they had these 
> funds but in the end no one used them.
> 
> Not to sound too much like a Scrooge, but I’m more concerned with how to 
> determine that one household needs the money more than another. People have 
> wildly different ways of spending money. 
> 
> I can’t afford to pay my condo fee this month because 
> 
> 1. Both my toenail artist and my hair dresser raised their fees. I have to 
> see them weekly and it adds up. (This one is real!)
> 
> 2. I would have to dip into my $1 million trust fund. (She doesn’t have 
> exactly $1 million but a lot.)
> 
> 3. For the last two years I have been too depressed to look for work. (She 
> got the message that this probably wouldn’t fly.)
> 
> 4. My daughter needs to vacation in Europe for two weeks every year to 
> understand The World and become a global citizen. (A big complainer about 
> money generally.)
> 
> There are definitely real emergencies and crises but unless they are 
> temporary, the community is subsidizing someone else's lifestyle. Some people 
> cut back on eating lunches out but others don’t. One complains but others in 
> the same financial circumstances don’t. 
> 
> Does the squeaky wheel get the grease? Even if the wheel has contributed and 
> continues to contribute to its ability to use the grease wisely?
> 
> For this reason, I would prefer facilitating private loans between community 
> members, except for communities who have taken on subsidized housing from the 
> beginning.
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> 
>