Dear Supporters,

It has been too long since you have heard from me. Please forgive me.

Raines and I have been working with the City of Berkeley to comply with their new housing affordability requirements which must match those of HUD and thus enable them to offer reverse mortgages …very complex.

At the same time, we have been thinking of other ways to keep me in my home and invite you to help. 

I am avoiding banks (and commercial lenders) because of my pacifist and anti-war beliefs got from the Methodist church and University of Oregon influences. This led to finding alternatives to war and later to skirting war-implicated banking.

Raines is a leader in the slow money movement that creates community-based ways of using money. Especially after the big banks’ collapse and bail out in 2008, the occupy movement and the wide spread realization in U.S. economics of the 99%, we see that we are part of a large and powerful movement.

Since Raines and I and friends met with HUD representatives, I have changed. After seeing that a federal agency changed (by accepting cohousing condominiums for reverse mortgages) because of the efforts of Raines, me and you, I now believe my friend, Reuben, who many years ago said that I could get a reverse mortgage without a bank (ironic after chasing HUD for years!).  At this point getting means some searching. We invite your help.

Raines and I want to find existing arrangements that use collective pots of money to give back to a community.   An example is a viager which one of you, a cohouser, gave to us!  It was invented in the 800’s in France and is experiencing  renewed vitality.

Many other fascinating ways of caring for group members and their communities have existed through long history worldwide. Some of these ways or organizations died, some continue, some have gotten renamed and re-conceptualized. All can warn, inform, and focus us. Some methods and partners we are considering include:

• building societies

• co-op banks and credit unions

• tongs

• tontines

• microcredit

• peer-to-peer lending (crowdfunding).

We are heirs to much expertise, vision, precedent, and success.  Raines and I invite your ideas and connection.