What lifestyle package could be sold for a family living near the poverty level? Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, has moved on from offices to homes. He is offering wrap-around lifestyle packages that include housing, recreation, meals, laundry, and more. The bet is that people will value the simplicity of accepting somebody else’s curated consumption package—and that bulk buying will make it enough cheaper to overcome the added coordination costs.

Any school offers a bundle of complimentary services and attracts partners. For colleges, the anchor is teaching undergraduate students. Undergraduate tuition provides funding for graduate students and professors’ research, who teach the classes. When students live on or near campus, there’s an industry to provide housing and meals that bolster the student experiences. Specialized counseling, medical, and financial aid services aim to help students successfully finish their degree. Athletics programs provide entertainment and brand awareness.

What’s the smallest scale imaginable to foster healthy growth of young adults? What’s the path to growth? Participate in a home matching online marketplace as an intermediary. Rent a home and sublet to subjects. Design rules for subjects’ cooperation. Provide a minimal set of services like back-up childcare, tutoring, academic advising, job searching, government benefits and tax advice, etc. Recruit more established adults to serve as mentors. Lend reputation by helping get subjects jobs.

Christians are called to live in the moment. To save up treasures in heaven, not on Earth. To trust God. But we are also not to be irresponsible and an undue burden on each other. It’s foolish to trust too fully in men, even if they profess trust in Christ. Failing to plan is planning to fail. How do we design lives of service to God and neighbors without misplacing too much trust in humans?

I dream of starting an intentional living community. For those who know me, “the Commune.” Since 2017, when I first started blathering about the Commune, the idea has remained slippery. It’s a loose collection of shifting goals that don’t accurately reflect a commune, but I don’t have a better name. So I’m starting a collection of related blog posts to help myself and others understand the vision, and maybe realize it.

Target populations: Community college students Young parents + kids at risk of CPS involvement because of poverty Goals for residents: Earn online degrees or certificates, with completion rates in line with public research universities Vocational training and start businesses Build savings Build healthy families Features Pooled household services like laundry and basic food Pooled childcare, augmented with parenting training Shared services for Internet, phone, etc. Heavy surveillance for child safety and a healthy environment (drug free) Educational support services for online college and for kids Placement with local employers Entrepreneurship incubator Minimize need for ongoing funding beyond initial endowment of land and buildings so that it’s extensible.

Math expressions unfortunately don’t appear correctly on my website. I’ll work on getting that straight here. Introduction Owners of mobile homes in mobile-home parks have a unique risk structure. Their homes are built on top of a wheeled trailer that can be towed. However, moving a “mobile” home costs a significant share of the home’s resale value and risks damage to the home. Eighty five percent of mobile homes are never moved from their initial placement.

This article imagines how an organization could raise capital for real estate to house college students by pooling students’ access to guaranteed government loans. It is inspired by the Korean system of Jeonse. From Wikipedia, “Jeonse (전세), also known as Key Money Deposit or Key Money, is a real estate term unique to South Korea that refers to the way apartments are leased. Instead of paying monthly rent, a renter will make a lump-sum deposit on a rental space, at anywhere from 50% to 80% of the market value.

What’s the easiest way to secure housing for a community of like-minded individuals with a shared purpose? This post compares the money required to (a) build such a neighborhood from scratch versus (b) orchestrate a hostile takeover of a poorly run homeowners association. (For context, much of my grad school work was about homeowners associations, or HOAs.) Option A: Gain political control of an existing common interest housing development, governed by an HOA: