Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Regarding Affordability in Cohousing

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Aug 20, 2016, at 1:14 PM, Angela Steiert <angie.steiert [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> most cohousing communities are private entities,
> and that cohousing is in limited quantity in the US which makes it more
> valuable. I do think we have to acknowledge the reality of cohousing in
> America.  So, there are places out there with more reasonable prices, but
> even those are probably too high for many Americans at the wages they
> currently make.

That the households that formed cohousing were able to do so because they had 
the private income or access to capital that made it possible. They didn’t have 
to convince a developer or government agency to help them. That was impossible 
so private income was the only way cohousing could exist. 

But not all the early cohousing communities were of above average income. But 
they were educated and had the skills and knowledge to develop real estate with 
what they had. 

Perhaps one way to help communities for low income households get built would 
be to form a non-profit staffed by volunteers who could offer the skills to 
groups that don’t have them. Raising two children as a single parent on a 
salary of $45,000 a year, less than $890 a week, probably also means very 
little if any vacation time or sick leave. That leaves time or energy to build 
a condo complex without the advice of experts or experienced cohousers who have 
done it already.

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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org