Cohousing-L Mailing List: Article on Cohousing on Strong Towns website

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

The excerpt below is from an article on cohousing on the Strong Towns website:

> Admittedly, while the more traditional forms of cohousing, and the new, 
> trendier millennial version both seem utopic, there are several barriers for 
> most people looking to achieve this type of lifestyle. The prohibitive price 
> point is the most substantial barrier — whether that be in creating a 
> community from the ground up, or affording the cost of a single room in one 
> of the millennial-variety communities.
> Sandra Kurtz, a resident of Chattanooga, Tennessee was interested in creating 
> a community of her own, “We get to things a little slow down here in the 
> south. There were no existing communities around us,” she laughed. However, 
> after two failed attempts with eight different families willing to invest, 
> she gave up. “It was hard to finance it. The bank was leery because they had 
> never heard of such a thing. [...] Because we were owning a lot of it 
> together, they weren’t willing to give us a loan,” said Kurtz. “And so, we 
> were all going to end up paying $250,000 to $300,000 for an 800-square foot 
> apartment. That wasn’t going to happen.”
> 
> There are no grants, or special loans available for people interested in 
> creating this type of community, making it a challenge for people without a 
> significant amount of wealth to make their dream into a reality. So, unless 
> you are living in a region where there happens to be an abundance of 
> cohousing communities, you may be out of luck. Even AARP, a major advocate 
> for communal living for older adults, sites on their webpage: “Cohousing may 
> not be an affordable option for older adults with limited assets or income.” 
> And while there have been creative solutions to the expense of building 
> communities from the ground up, such as a retrofit of an old monastery in 
> Denver, Colorado, it is largely unattainable for any of the Americans who 
> live on limited incomes.
> 
> As for start-ups like Common, Star City, and WeLive, outside of the obscene 
> cost of creating one from scratch ($18.9 million in venture capital for the 
> Star City development, to be exact), the rooms themselves do not scream 
> affordability for anyone that is not living a middle- or upper-class 
> lifestyle. The price-tag for a bedroom ranging in size from 130 to 250 square 
> feet typically goes for a cool $1,300 to just under $3,000 a month, meaning 
> that, at minimum, residents would need to make anywhere from $47,000 to 
> $100,000 to comfortably afford rent at these developments.
> 
> So, while affordable options are certainly available in some developments 
> such as a selection of low-income units at the Wild Sage community in Denver, 
> Colorado, and the fully affordable housing Common has proposed for 2019 in 
> New Orleans, for those of us living in the Midwest (me) or other regions 
> where communal options are few and far between, it is important to consider 
> how we can make this seemingly idealistic dream an available lifestyle for 
> all, regardless of income level.
> 
> Undoubtedly, interest in the benefits of communal living and cohousing has 
> begun to permeate the conversation around new housing developments across the 
> U.S. However, accessible, affordable, and intentional cohousing communities — 
> while on the upsurge — remain few and far between. The groundwork to make 
> cohousing a financial feasibility for people across age and financial 
> demographics is still a ways into the future. 

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