Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Screening prospective members for sexual abuse in their background

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Mar 4, 2022, at 3:53 PM, Elizabeth Magill <pastorlizm [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I was surprised to discover that Maggie is right, that HOAs do have a 
> responsibility to take seriously neighbor-to-neighbor abuse within the
> community.
> https://www.allpropertymanagement.com/blog/post/hoa-responsibility-for-neighbor-to-neighbor-disputes-harassment/
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Also, I think we expect cohousing to be *not like* other groups of
> people in ways that are naive and untrue.

And it happens in both ways — we assume cohousing won’t have all the problems 
other condos have and we assume regular condos don’t have the community life 
that cohousing has. All condos are like the average bad example and all 
cohousing is like the average good example. 

Particularly older condos where people have known each other for generations 
and several of the generations may live in the building. I have a friend who 
lives in a building of about 50 units and 6 of them are occupied by 3 
generations of her other family members. Other people in the building have 
lived there since her family first moved in in 1930s and then subsequent 
generations of their families moved in when her own family generations started 
buying other units. Lots of condos are like that.

I also find that in our effort to avoid autocratic boards, we can too easily 
throw out the baby with the bathwater. Boards are traditionally charged with 
protecting residents, not just pushing them around. One of our lawyer members 
said the one clear responsibility of the Board, no matter what, is protecting 
the rights and safety of individual homeowners and residents. Individuals who 
are harassed can sue the Board.

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