User:WikiHousing

Home, sweet home

Help the Wikipedians to live closer to each other, if/when they wish that

Hello there,

I am a wikipedian with more than five years of activity and more than 10,000 edits. For some privacy reasons I decided to create a new user and to post my message with it. Since a long time ago I was thinking that I would like to live closer to other wikipedians. There are two proposals I have for Wikimedia Foundation (WMF):

1) Help the wikipedians to find apartments to share. Since many years, I live in a flat, where I rent a room. I pay 300 euros / month to the owner of the apartment for that room. But I would like to find other wikipedians in my city who are interested to share a flat. And then, three wikipedians for example can rent an apartment together. The advantage consists in sharing the house with people who share your passions and in feeling more comfortable and safe. It's less likely that you will have problems when you live with people who are trying to build a better world, than when you live with people you find in a newspaper. I know, I can contact the wikipedians in my country (I think such a group already exists), but WMF can better help people to find each other for such purpose. WMF can promote this so the people better get the idea, and it can involve a bit in some very big cities, where there are many wikipedians.

A group of six wikipedians can rent two apartments next to each other, making the situation even more interesting. Twenty wikipedians might be able to rent an entire small apartment building, and so on. For me, it would be very nice to live in a Wipedia community. And I dare to think that I'm not the only one who thinks like that.

2) Rent rooms/studios/apartments/houses to wikipedians - and not only to wikipedians. I know WMF is not a real estate agency, but there is an undeniable fact: people make donations to WMF, and in the future, before or after passing away, they will live their wealth and houses to Wikipedia. Maybe such things already happened. I am one of those people who will live a part of their wealth to Wikipedia at the end of my life - at least 20% but maybe even 50% or 90%. And then, Wikipedia can rent those houses to wikipedians, at the market price, having a steady source of income forever. Instead of renting to random people, WMF should try to rent it to wikipedians first (but no discounts for them), so they can be closer to each other, if that's what they wish.

I suggest that WMF should also try something like this to see how it goes: buy a house somewhere in the suburbs of a big city where there are many wikipedians (let's say New York or Los Angeles). A house that needs a bit of reforming (and which is cheaper because it needs reforming). Maybe some wikipedians will volunteer to help with reforming. Or maybe some wikipedians will convince their family or friends to volunteer. And then, after reforming it, WMF can rent it to wikipedians. It is a one-time investment but it generates income forever. Or WMF can raise a cheap building (open source plans, open source techology) with small studios and rent them. If WMF would start such a project, I am more than happy to put 300 euros to support buying or raising a building for renting it. Maybe I would put even 500 euros. I am quite sure that I am not the only one to support such an idea. Many people (will) realize the fact that renting housing can generate revenues forever and it's one of the best ideas for funding a foundation. The money for the building can be raised in a campaign anywhere, even on Kickstarter.

In case that renting to wikipedians can be problematic (like some of them asking for a free rent in return for their work on Wikipedia), then the flats should be rented to non-wikipedians, who don't create such problems. Or there can be strict rules in place, to make sure such problems can't rise.

Many times I wonder why big charities like Red Cross or World Vision are not doing things like that. Many people live their houses to such charities in their testaments. Why they refuse to rent those places to the people, to generate a steady revenue, it's a big question for me. The only answer I can imagine is that they struggle very hard to keep it fake. Instead of paying 30 euros / month to Red Cross as a supporting member, I would prefer to pay them 300 euros / month for a room that they already have. It would generate 10 times more revenue (from me) that can be used to help the poor. But in this world, the things are the way they are..

I would accept to pay the same money that I am paying now for renting a room, even if it's further from my work than the place where I live now, if I can share the flat with more interesting and safe people. And I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who thinks like that.

This kind of things should have been done a long time ago, by the charities who have millions of members worldwide. Therefore, the idea should be expanded to rent not only to wikipedians, but to all wikians in general, and even to members of charities who are (being misleaded into) trying to improve the world: Red Cross, Vorld Vision, Action Aid, World Food Programme, etc. Those members who participated for a minimum while, of course.

In the end, I would like to bring into your attention the fact that the Red Cross in Kenya owns a five star hotel, that is generating a constant revenue. So this idea is not completely new. And renting real estate is easier and safer than owning businesses like hotels, restaurants, shops or other kind of for-profit activities, which can go up but also can go down anytime. As an activist, I would feel much better to live close to other activists than living close to strangers.

I think WMF should definitely try those things out.

Thanks for reading all the words above. Yours sincerely, --- WikiHousing (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2014 (UTC)