NCOC: Civic Health Index Finds America in the Midst of Civic Foreclosure: "The survey’s results reflect the hard choices Americans have made during the downturn, with 72 percent of respondents saying they have cut back on time engaged in civic participation, which includes time spent volunteering, participating in groups or performing other civic activities in their communities."
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Thanks to Fred Pilot for this link to a study that suggests even more bad news for the nation's HOAs and condo associations. They have a hard time finding volunteers even when the economy is good.
3 comments:
The irony here is current public policy favoring the privatization of local government makes HOAs more dependent on public (i.e. civic) involvement by their constituents since HOAs tend to have far fewer residents than public local government jurisdictions and limit suffrage to property owners.
There are also cultural aspects that highlight the inherent contradictions of the non sequitur called "private government." Consider the recent trend toward "forting up" in which people want to cocoon in gated "communities" where individual privacy rather than any semblance of community is paramount.
There is no shortage of thugs, crooks, bullies, and sociopaths looking for an opportunity to head up a private corporation that gives them the authority of a 3rd world leader. It's the 99.9% of the remainder of the subdivision that wants nothing to do with the HOA nor the municipalities that view them as third world slaves - good only for paying taxes.
I disagree with Fred's earlier comment about cocooning. Gated communities do NOT give individuals privacy at all. Moreover, many of these places are gated because the municipality demanded private installation and maintenance of roads - yet the homeowners within must still pay road taxes for everyone else plus nondeductible assessments for their own. The gates are also mechanisms for the declarants to route all prospective sales to a particular location. The gates aren't going up because homeowners want them but rather as a result of municipal demands and developer objectives. The only good fence is a fence around your own property where YOU control the access, otherwise it's a prison not a fort.
These fenced in subdivisions are places where the homeowners are threatened by all the same things that occur elsewhere PLUS they are fish in a barrel for the HOA. Believe it or not criminals live in HOAs. Indeed, they seem to frequently navigate to the boards of HOAs where they wreak unassailable havoc on other residents!
Anonymous Above,
Very well said. Try being the legitimate, community minded, no clue there is an industry board member. Your life is over! You failed to mention that these thieves, thugs and bullies, target, terrorize, fraudulently assess, file fabricated lawsuits and yes, will move to foreclose against the most vulnerable populations first. They especially seem to dislike disabled populations as "disabled homeowners are going to cost us money,etc..." as I heard one of these, in my opinion, sociopathic board members state at an annual meeting. Oh, and yes, they are in the insurance industry! The truly abusive boards appear to target the elderly, disabled, single parent homes, as they have really no resources to fight back. The majority of the time there is NOTHING to fight back against, as the "charges," are created conflict. I have seen cases where the property is not owned by the group, or association, filing the charges, they have no authority to file ANY charges, and innocent families are forced into homelessness, legal, or not. The general public needs to WAKE UP AND FIGURE OUT WHO SOME OF THEIR "NEIGHBORS," REALLY ARE!
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