Housing Co-op

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February 04, 2005

Jacob Center, etc.

Hi friends-

Here's an update for co-op activities this week. Sue Reynolds (of Community Housing Works who I met with last week) and Bob Kennedy of the city's redevelopment agency this the best way forward it to meet with different non-profit developers in the area to see what kind of projects they would be willing to assist in. The idea is that there is little point in educating and trying to build a coalition around the idea of trying to establish a cooperative say if there's not going to be any support with any local developers. The idea is that once a developer is found who will support the project, then you begin the education and trying to find a core group of people who could be interested in the project. So... Mr. Kennedy and I will have a meeting in about two weeks to discuss how we could possibly work with the city. I have also talked to Ron Cummings of the Jacob Center which is basically running a land bank in the Euclid/Market area of town. They are a pretty interesting groups.

Basically, and this is a rudimentary explanation, they own lots of land in that area of town and are trying to help families who have lived in the area for a long time begin to buy homes from them at affordable rates so that the area is not gentrified and outside developers don't just come in and buy up all the land and thereby jack up home prices. Although they won't be able to work with the specific idea of a cooperative with us (we don't all live in the area already) we would likely be able to assist some of the Cambodian members of the church who already rent in the area to jump on board the process. If any of you are interested in the corporation its name is Jacob Center for Non-Profit Innovation. Perhaps more discussion needs to take place on what goals of the congregation should be. If our goal is just affordable housing then we can probably work to hook different families up with different affordable rental units ran by various non-profits or hooking up families with land trusts like the Jacob Center. If we want to actually learn to live together and use housing as a way to facilitate the mission of our congregation of sharing of goods and lives together then we would have to work harder to find a developer that will come alongside us in this goal. (Most developers seem to see a group of people that also happen to go to church together as sectarian or exclusive even though I presume we would want the membership not exclusively people from our church). There are a few more developers in town I can talk to to see if our mission/ goals would coincide but it seems likely that if we want to work with the cooperative ownership model comprised of members of our church (I presume as a base, not exclusively people who are members) we will probably have to get the help of outside developers. Anyways, there's a few more local developers in town who we can try to talk to. In the meantime, let me know if you would like to talk with me about our options or how I am seeing the process for the next few weeks. Any ideas/questions/worries/etc are, as always, encouraged. Would another meeting at this point be helpful or shall I just plug on in talking with different developers in town? Hope you're all in a good way.

Peace,
Aaron

Posted by aaronfriberg at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)