> One thing that really defies my understanding of this country is why on
> earth even the poorest schmuck insists of individual home ownership, instead
> of pooling their resources in a cooperative? Cooperatives are big
> elsewhere, Canada, Europe, Australia, but they are rare here. It is not
> that they cannot be established. I live in one that was created in the 1970
> as an alternative to public housing - today we have 200+ units, well
> maintained, financially sound, debt free and darn cheap. It cost less than
> a half to live in our coop than it would have cost to own a similar unit.
>
> However, there is very little interest in coop membership. People are
> buying overpriced real estate like crazy, risking insolvency, but there is
> little interest in coop membership. We get a lot of inquiries in relatively
> short term rentals, but not in long term coop membership.
>
> This is something that I have difficulty understanding. Why on earth people
> chose overpriced real estate and loan sharks to cooperatives? Is it just
> rabid yank individualism or something else? Any insights?
Yes. I lived in a cooperative in Madison back in 1989-1991. I wrote an article about the experience which has been turned into a much pirated pamphlet.
Some of you may wonder why I'm still living in Kansas City. I've been working on a cooperative housing project here for the past two years. We are at the stage of finding a lawyer to help us through the Missouri and IRS paperwork. Our goal is to set up a limited equity cooperative and buy one of the cheap apartment buildings that exist in Midtown Kansas City. You can buy some of the cheaper six unit apartment buildings starting at $125,000. Housing is cheap in Kansas City and cheaper if you buy a run down place in a marginal neighborhood. But you can find affordable housing here in some pretty good neighborhoods.
One thing we've discovered is that there are lots of barriers to starting a cooperative, especially for working class people. There is no clearcut process for establishing cooperatives and in fact, Missouri law was hostile towards cooperative up until around 10 years ago.
We've drawn up our by-laws and have outlined how our organization would function. We've compiled a list of features and amenities we'd like to have in the building purchased for the project. But we are working class people with little money. So we have to come up with money for the lawyer and I have no idea how we are going to swing bank financing for this project.
I've also been told that we may run into opposition from landlords and developers who may see a cooperative project, even just one building, as a threat to their interests.
To answer Woj's questions:
I think that main reason why most poor people don't pursue cooperative hosuing is ignorance. If you don't know that such a thing could exist, it ain't going to cross your mind. If examples of cooperative dont' exist in your community and the ones that do exist are quiet about what they are doing, poor people aren't going to see these alternatives. Then there is just the societal indoctrination and capitalist propaganda that tells everybody that privately-owned housing is the goal for everyone. Never mind the fact that this kind of housing is almost all bank-owned housing.
The next obstacle is the one we are dealing with. The system has set up many roadblocks for anybody who wants to pursue cooperative housing. If the process were easy, there would be more cooperative housing out there.
Chuck