President of What?

Inadvertently I’ve become part of the leadership of a small secular community. It’s the housing Coop I live in. I say “inadvertently” because I never set out to be so involved, I just started to be the difference I wanted to see in my world. I say secular because it isn’t a church. But it is a place that I regard as a kind of Ark riding out the flood and storm of our current times. We are forty-four families that co-own a property that has just been assessed a value of $16,000,000.oo and, because it is a non-profit, none of us can do anything to realize that wealth except to continue to live here.

The average rent for a one bedroom in Vancouver is $3000.oo a month according to <this article> in the Vancouver Sun, one of our local newspapers. A two bedroom unit in our coop, the smallest available, is $995.oo a month.

It’s an absolute miracle that we emerged from the pandemic with no unpaid housing charges (that’s what we call what we pay not rent nor mortgage)

I’m president of the board of directors, and I’m also the secretary, and in February will be able to add “head of landscaping” to the list of letters after my name, cuz that guy’s not running for the board again. I’m not proud of my seeming inability to delegate. I am part of a 2 person maintenance committee. We make decisions about how to go about solving maintenance issues that come up, relying so closely on one another, that I hesitate to say either one of us is chairman. I’m not the most qualified person here to do the job by any means. I hesitate to even tell people about what I do here. Because I am truly just serving my community.