As far as how as it works from a financial perspective, the money paid for space usage, rental or Product %’s or just from a supporting member who isn’t using the space but wants to support it and get benefits, goes to the mortgage (we have a private loan and a bank loan), utilities (electric is wind energy baby!), paying Roxanne to coordinate members and paying Imani or Abbey to coordinate childcare services and volunteers. Then, any leftover goes back to the members! So, as we expand, eventually, you will make money at the end of the month, in theory, if this co-op works as intended!  All financial info about how the member monies are spent will be available to any member that wishes to review, each month.  You will see the mortgage prices, utilities bill prices, maintenance bills, and payments made to Roxanne, Imani, Abbey and hopefully other staff we may need as we expand. 

The home we are in is owned by Kellee and her husband Joey, through a very creative loan structuring. Up until now, the space has been on Airbnb full time to cover the mortgages and bills, which frankly has not been enough due to the size it’s just not an easily rentable space on those sites. Until we have enough members, the space won’t be available on weekends so it can continue to make the needed revenue on rental sites so that mortgages can be met. Our goal is to have enough members by years end to take the property off Airbnb on weekends so the space can be used on the weekends. 

The family does however utilize the space occasionally given their families aren’t in Pgh so for example, the week of Christmas, joeys family will be in the home overnight and thus less space will be available for use. Anyone deeply impacted by this either by not having work space or not being able to schedule space usage when needed, will get refunds equal to those losses, just make Roxanne aware and she can arrange. Obviously as you can tell from the space, the family put a great deal of money into the space, made a sizeable down payment and will be expanding the space so the hope is that everyone understands their need for personal use of the space from time to time given all the monetary investments they have made thus far. That said, each member has a voice and say in their gift being the value that it needs to be so don’t ever hesitate to let us know if this situation. Or if just the sheer number of members we takes on somehow doesn’t allow you to do what you need to do we can adjust your membership gift accordingly.

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