Critical Mass 

They think the community association model is inherently flawed. They think CAI is the industry and the industry is corrupt. They call themselves homeowner advocates, and they're coming soon to a state legislature, website, or listserve near you. [If they're not already there.]

It's 2 p.m. the Saturday before Valentine's Day, and Shu Bartholomew is on the air. The topic is homeowner associations. On Bartholomew's weekly radio show, On the Commons, the topic is always homeowner associations, and if you're curious about what the host herself thinks of them, look no further than the little cartoon sign on her website: "You are now leaving the American Zone."

When it comes to sheer news value, community associations and the issues that arise within them seldom offer immediacy or sweeping relevance. But on this February afternoon, things are about as timely as they get for On the Commons. Bartholomew's guest is Frank Askin, a law professor at Rutgers University who won a potentially landmark appeal against a New Jersey HOA—a decision announced only five days before.

For 50 minutes, at Bartholomew's gentle prompting, Askin explains the court's major findings, which would impose constitutional standards on association governance, and speculates on their possible implications. He also responds to Bartholomew's steady stream of interjections, asides, and, sometimes, complete non sequiturs, most of them directed at CAI or, more ominously, "the industry." After Askin reviews several tangential issues decided at various stages during the case, for example, there's a pause. Then Bartholomew says: "You know, CAI will be the first one to say, 'Hands off. Associations are the best form of democracy we have today. It's democracy up close and personal.' Yet, all of these issues seem to frustrate any kind of public participation.... Associations have been known to fine people right before an election, especially if they know that they're going to vote for somebody else. So, there's no democracy in an association." Later, when Askin says he wouldn't mind if some lingering questions in the case were hashed out in mediation, Bartholomew asks: "How many of the mediators are members of CAI?" Some minutes after that, the discussion turns to how the ruling might be implemented across the country, and Askin says he's not optimistic that state legislatures could be of much help because CAI exerts more influence there than homeowners do. That really gets Bartholomew excited. "I'll tell you one thing," she says. "A lot of legislators are pulling their hair.... I have talked to legislators from a couple of different states, and the thing is, they're getting inundated with calls from really mad constituents. They're just really fed up and don't know where to turn. The problem is, the legislators don't know what they're doing either. And so they've come up with the ombudsmen. They're coming up with common-interest commissions.... And all of those things are being hijacked by the industry. They're being run by the industry, and the homeowners are getting further and further behind." Askin is silent, so Bartholomew plows ahead: "And even in instances where you have criminal activity, nobody's willing to get involved."

All in all, it's not bad radio. The issues get covered, the host cracks some jokes, and the listeners—well, it's doubtful that any minds have been changed. Audiences for shows like On the Commons tend to be self-selecting, and Bartholomew considers herself a journalist but also a homeowner advocate, one of a number of self-styled watchdogs who think HOAs need monitoring, fixing, serious reining in, or even complete dissolution. And, in many ways, Bartholomew's soft, lilting tones are the voice of the movement itself: earnest, wonky, suspicious, dedicated, outraged, and prone to cracking.

Homeowner associations have always had their critics, but today, those critics have something they didn't used to: cheap, accessible technology. Websites, blogs, listserves, mass e-mail, and Internet radio, among other applications, mean that a lone crusader can go online, meet crusaders in other states, swap HOA horror stories, maybe hang out an electronic shingle, draw in still more crusaders, swap more HOA horror stories, and generate sufficient critical mass to attract attention from the media, politicians, and, of course, even more crusaders—all without ever leaving the house. "One click on my computer, and 5,000 people hear what I have to say," says Jan Bergemann, president of Florida-based Cyber Citizens for Justice (CCFJ). "And they often in turn distribute it to other people. That is something that couldn't have been done 10 years ago. I talk to people in California. We exchange ways of doing things. Ten years ago that wouldn't have been possible. We wouldn't have even known they existed."

But they do exist, across the country, in patches and pockets that mirror the still largely decentralized, mom-and-pop nature of the industry they monitor. There's CCFJ in Florida, Shu Bartholomew's On the Commons in Virginia, the American Homeowners Resource Center (AHRC) in California, Citizens for Constitutional Local Government (CCLG) and the Coalition of HomeOwners for Rights and Education (CHORE) in Arizona, Consumers for Housing Choice (CHC) in Delaware, the Common-Interest Homeowners Coalition (C-IHC) in New Jersey, and the Texas Homeowner's Advocate Group (THAG). These and other groups like them vary in size, organization, tactics, and tone, but most of their founders seem to share at least one trait: They were made, not born. They tangled with their HOAs, or were sued by their condominium associations, or even served on their boards only to become disillusioned by what they saw as rampant incompetence and abuse of power. So they asked around, did some research, and learned more. They read newspaper articles or heard stories about people who lost their homes in HOA foreclosures, or were forced to shell out thousands of dollars in fees and late charges for failing to pay their assessments, or were denied access to basic association records. And they became convinced that this was, if not normal, then not uncommon. More prevalent, certainly, than the industry—than CAI—was willing to admit.

Bartholomew, for example, says in an interview that her homeowner association, in Fairfax County, Virginia, never bothered her personally but harassed some of her neighbors and "started doing things I didn't particularly like." She asked for copies of some meeting minutes, she says, and was told she couldn't see them because she wasn't on the board. So she ran for the board, got elected, and, she says, "It was a real eye-opener.... I've seen it from that side, and it was seeing that that made me realize what a crock this whole thing is." One day seven or eight years ago, she was monitoring a newsgroup about HOAs, struck up a "cyberconversation," and then, she remembers, "I got asked, what are you going to do for the cause? And I said nothing." But she was working on a local cable access TV show at the time, and eventually she looked into doing something for the cause—to help the homeowners who were outmanned and outgunned by the industry. Today, On the Commons is broadcast live as a cable-access radio show every Saturday afternoon and also streamed over the Internet. While speculating that "I probably have more regular listeners than I know about," Bartholomew says she doesn't actually know how many people tune in to her show.

"I try to get information that's not readily available to the homeowners," she says. "So I bring in the experts—I'm not an expert—and they explain things." Bartholomew frequently hosts other advocates, like Bergemann, and well-known industry critics like Evan McKenzie, author of the book Privatopia. But the show has also featured professionals from the industry—even "CAI attorneys" like Robert Diamond, Esq., a former CAI national president. Bartholomew speaks of the importance of representing all points of view, because "if everyone's thinking alike, no one's thinking." But still, on the air or off, there's no doubt where she stands. "I don't buy into the notion that [associations] protect property values," she says. "I believe in your home being your castle."

CHORE's Pat Haruff also served on her board—her three-year term only just ended in January—but she actually founded her group three years before seeking election. Why? "I had a problem with my HOA [in Mesa, Arizona]," she says, blunt and self-deprecating during a 90-minute interview. "The same old stuff—lack of communication, the secretiveness of the board, the meetings they would not announce, the records when you would ask for something very basic and simple that they would not give you." The problems didn't stop once she got elected. In February 2003, the month after she was seated on the board, she says, her fellow board members tried to get rid of her because her service as CHORE's president created a conflict of interest. Eventually there were lawsuits, Haruff says, and she won everything—even attorney's fees—and remained on the board.

Three years later, she estimates that CHORE has at least one member in 1,500 to 2,000 HOAs throughout Arizona. Haruff has e-mail addresses for all of them, allowing her group to maintain an aggressive legislative posture. Haruff is retired and says she spends at least three days a week at the state capitol in Phoenix when the legislature is in session. In the last several years, CHORE has successfully lobbied on behalf of more than a dozen proposals affecting, among other things, how associations run meetings, impose fines, and reveal conflicts of interest, and is pushing hard to curtail their foreclosure powers. Often Haruff—who, while she served on her own board, was a member of CAI—squares off against Scott Carpenter, Esq., co-chair of CAI's Arizona Legislative Action Committee (LAC). Carpenter concedes that CHORE, while tending to inflame the debate by adopting "poster children for whatever it is," has generally fought the good fight. "I think they're asking good, deep, fundamental, philosophical questions," Carpenter says. "When you ask the question 'Should the association have a lien on a property or not?,' they're really unearthing one of the core issues for associations nationwide. 'Should the association have the right to take the home if a person doesn't pay assessments?' That's as deep as it gets." Says Haruff: "The only thing everyone at CHORE wants is responsibility and accountability from the board of directors. We want them to fulfill and honor their fiduciary duty."

That's where Jan Bergemann says he comes down, too. He formed CCFJ in 2000 with a handful of other activists he met more or less by chance "running through the hallways in Tallahassee." Eventually they decided to join forces. Today, Bergemann says CCFJ has 250 paying members and about 5,000 subscribers on its e-mail list. Like CHORE, the group is highly focused on lobbying—and very effective. It was instrumental in pushing for the creation of an HOA task force and a state House of Representatives condo committee, which in 2004 yielded legislation that, according to Bergemann, "created major changes in association law in Florida." And CCFJ members routinely serve on other statewide task forces and councils addressing association issues. "Homeowners are unorganized," Bergemann says. "They didn't buy a home to get into politics. That is where organized political groups like CAI have the advantage. But legislatures are starting to smell the fish."

On the phone Bergemann is jovial and friendly, his English leavened by a strong German accent. The problem, he says, isn't usually the board members, many of whom are simply "good-willing retired folks [who] don't know how to handle a corporation with a $1.4-million budget." Instead, Bergemann reserves his scorn for "the service providers," which is code for management companies and, especially, attorneys. This is a common complaint among homeowner advocates—that the industry is ruled by a professional class with no financial interest in regulating or otherwise changing how associations operate. "I understand that managers want to earn money," Bergemann says. "I understand that attorneys want to make money. But they have to understand that homeowners have certain interests as well, and one of them is not for the attorney to buy a new Mercedes each year."

What really needs to happen, Bergemann says, is for all the players—service provides, homeowners, volunteer leaders, and advocates—to sit down and talk things out. Years ago, he notes, CAI's message board used to be open to anyone who wanted to participate, and advocates posted alongside board members, managers, and attorneys. "Everyone," Bergemann says, "was on reasonable, good terms." But nowadays CAI's message board is for members only, and debate throughout the industry has turned rancorous. "In general, the atmosphere is not very good," he says. "It ends mostly in lawsuits. It ends in big fights in front of the legislatures, including name-calling, which I think shouldn't be."

But some of Bergemann's opponents scoff at his pleas for compromise and civility, or his attempts to frame CCFJ as a "consumer alliance." CCFJ's website and e-mails, they point out, are dominated by inflammatory headlines and name-calling, and tend to paint anyone remotely connected to HOAs with the same brush. One CCFJ column, for example, blasts an e-mail sent out by an industry attorney as "A Letter of Outright Lies and Falsehoods." Paul Wean, Esq., the immediate past chair of CAI's Florida Legislative Alliance, takes it on the chin regularly. He's been accused of malpractice and vilified as a proponent of "dictatorial tools" for boards. "They tend to personalize it," Wean says. "They tend to blast legislators that don't agree with them. They're not sophisticated in the way they lobby. Is there a reasoned, rational dialogue? No." But still, Wean says, "to a large extent they drive the legislative agenda in this state."

During their interviews, Bartholomew, Haruff, and Bergemann are all accessible and forthright, even charming. All three seem able to hold the debate at arm's length, and as a result they can consider questions about what they do and why—even coming from a CAI magazine—and give good-faith answers. Some of their brethren aren't so indulgent.

CCLG's founder and president, George Staropoli, for example, originally agreed to an interview but later changed his mind. In a brief phone call during which he's quiet and almost courtly, he explains that Common Ground is CAI's "house organ," and that he'd be more comfortable with a debate or similar format where he could express himself at length, without the risk of being quoted out of context. He asks that his prolific writings on the CCLG website speak for him, although a week or two later he sends an "open e-mail questionnaire to CAI" containing four questions that sprout from CCLG's mission, which reads in part: "To inform the public (a) of the private government nature of HOAs and their governing bodies, the homeowners association; (b) of the restrictions on homeowners' civil liberties; and (c) of the lack of effective enforcement of state laws and the governing documents under the 'private contract' interpretation of HOAs." It's unclear how many members Staropoli has attracted to CCLG—Carpenter calls him a "lone ranger"—but certainly his approach is more philosophical than other advocates'. Says Carpenter: "George Staropoli believes he's leading a revolution.... To him, this is a struggle against tyranny. And he uses that word all the time."

According to the website, Staropoli—who launched CCLG in 2000—at one time served as treasurer of an HOA in Pennsylvania. Nothing more is written about his personal experience with associations, but today, he clearly thinks they go about things the wrong way. Or, rather, that they're permitted to go about things the wrong way, free from the constitutionally imposed checks and balances that bind municipal governments. "When the board fines you, where do you go for your due process?" he said in a recent interview with the Middletown (Ohio) Journal. "You go right back to the same people who fined you."

Like Staropoli, representatives from C-IHC and THAG both declined to be interviewed for this article after concluding that it would dismiss all homeowner advocates as "anti-HOA." (See "'Anti' Matter," at right.) But, like other people in the movement, their advocacy seems to stem directly from negative personal experience. According to THAG's website, the group was founded 10 years ago by Johnnie and Harvella Jones "after their $90,000 homestead property in Kingwood, Texas, was maliciously foreclosed for $184.92." THAG concentrates on legislative activity. Its current target is the Texas Uniform Planned Community Act (TUPCA), a sweeping proposal to standardize oversight of associations across the state that was drafted by the Texas College of Real Estate Attorneys and is being considered by the Texas legislature. THAG has even started a blog devoted specifically to the measure, which CAI's Texas LAC supports except for several provisions that are the subject of ongoing discussions. In a single-spaced, 14-page letter THAG recently sent to 18 state legislators, Harvella Jones singles out a TUPCA provision that would uphold Texas HOAs' current right to judicial and nonjudicial foreclosure: "We suggest you take this piece of garbage called TUPCA and send it back to the trash where it belongs and let the CAI cottage industry know by passing bills to stop and forever eliminate homeowner association foreclosures of any kind in this state."

Similarly, C-IHC's current president, Margaret Bar-Akiva, is no stranger to association run-ins. In fact, she and her husband were among the plaintiffs in Committee for a Better Twin Rivers v. Twin Rivers Homeowners' Association, the groundbreaking appeal that Frank Askin just won in New Jersey. (See "Twin Rivers Revisited," p. 13.) Bar-Akiva declined to talk to Common Ground, but an editorial she co-wrote for Newark's Star-Ledger newspaper in February suggests what changes she—and her organization—would like to effect: "[Association homeowners] who depart from governing strictures can be punished severely, subjected to onerous fines, costly litigation and even foreclosure. Homeowner associations finance litigious strategies with residents' money, paid into annual dues and fees." The editorial notes that CAI filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Twin Rivers HOA, and dismisses CAI as "the monolithic national lobbying organization that provided attorneys to argue the case against residents in the Twin Rivers case"—which presumably means the attorneys were members of CAI, as in fact they are, and not actually on CAI's payroll, which they aren't.

AHRC, meanwhile, seems less oriented to lobbying and more like a clearinghouse, with original articles and columns as well as links to pending legislation, other advocacy sites, and what seems like every newspaper article ever written that reflects poorly on the industry. An AHRC representative originally agreed to answer questions for this article, then stopped responding to requests for an interview, apparently for the same reason Jones and Bar-Akiva said no. But, in an initial e-mail reply to Common Ground, the representative—never identified by name—wrote that "AHRC is not an advocacy group but a publishing group," which seems disingenuous considering that the group's stated mission is "to help citizens in homeowner associations to take back their homes from the two generations of crooked lawyers, politicians, judges and vendors who have stolen them." Among the documents posted on its sprawling website is a copy of testimony that AHRC Executive Director Elizabeth McMahon gave before the Texas Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Relations in Houston. In the testimony, which is dated Jan. 16, 2002, McMahon says: "The law should clearly recognize that homeowner associations are another layer of government, and make them comply with state law regarding elections, disclosure and non-discrimination." She concludes: "I know that the collapse of Enron has caused much pain and suffering in Houston. Hence, I do not lightly make the following comparison. Unless the issue of homeowner associations is comprehensively tackled, there will be many future Enrons within them also."

But Enron is among the least-sensationalist comparisons AHRC has made. Articles and columns have compared the plight of association homeowners to slaves, Native Americans slaughtered by the U.S. government, and torture victims at Abu Ghraib. They've alleged that an industry-sympathetic California legislator's "indifference and callousness" contributed to the suicide of a homeowner advocate two years ago. They've spoken sympathetically of Richard Glassel, who murdered two people during an HOA board meeting in Arizona: "[D]id he feel that there was no way out of the situation in which he was in—his home had been foreclosed on—and that violence was the only way to gain some measure of retribution?" Never mind that Glassel's disagreements with his association had to do with landscaping and other mundane operations, or that it was the bank that foreclosed on him.

But contributors to AHRC seem to reserve most of their vitriol for CAI, which AHRC calls a "trade lobby group for homeowner association foreclosure lawyers and their litigation support groups." Industry attorneys are routinely dismissed as "equity stripping CAI lawyers," whether they're members of CAI or not. Responding to a request for an interview with Common Ground that AHRC posted online, Jan Jackson—identified as a homeowner activist in Colorado and the editor of AHRC's Colorado Homeowners News service—left this comment: "The only words any HOA/CIC homeowner needs to speak to any CAI member are the following: YOU CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL, AND YOU CAN TAKE ALL OF YOUR SOCIETALLY AND FINANCIALLY DESTRUCTIVE POWER-AND-MONEY SEEKING CAI LAWYER BUDDIES WITH YOU!!!!!" Most other comments, in this thread and others, are anonymous, but similarly volatile.

"They're probably the single most anti-HOA trade organization group," says Jill Van Zeebroeck, CMCA, PCAM, who chairs CAI's California Legislative Action Committee (CLAC). "Some of the other [advocacy] organizations that from time to time we may come up against, we can usually work out our differences.... This organization is absolutely awful. They put hyperbolic jargon on there to simply incite and anger homeowners who don't know any better."

It's tempting to see homeowner advocates as belonging to a single body—one mind, one purpose, many arms. They link to each other's websites, after all, and leave comments on each other's blogs, and quote each other constantly, and appear as guests on each other's talk shows. But, actually, the movement is more diverse than that.

Some advocates talk to Common Ground, for example, while others don't. And some participate in panel discussions about foreclosure at CAI national conferences, as CHORE's Haruff did in May 2005, while others don't. And, boy, did Haruff take some heat for that—sitting on a panel that included Scott Carpenter, of all people. AHRC's Arizona Homeowners News service wrote: "[The panel] will present different views in spite of the fact that CHORE claims to be a coalition of homeowners, even though it is a private email group." The item went on to blast Haruff for not opposing an amendment that "removed all the 'guts'" from a foreclosure bill in the Arizona legislature the year before. The only other group that didn't oppose the amendment, according to AHRC, was CAI.

"I get a lot of criticism," Haruff says. "I get criticized all the time for how I handle situations. I'll get criticized for talking to you." She says: "Nothing will get settled if we don't talk. If we don't compromise, we're going to be at this battle forever." When she puts it that way, it doesn't sound like she and her sparring partner are so far apart. For his part, Carpenter would just like to see a break in the flood of legislative proposals coming from CHORE and other advocates. "The challenge here is, the circle never stops," Carpenter says. "Every year, there's some problem. My dream is eventually some legislator, or Pat Haruff and her group, will stop and say, 'Enough is enough.'"


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In March, an Alabama homeowner named Dorian MacDougall posted a notice on the American Homeowners Resource Center (AHRC) website announcing the publication of the HOAprimer, a "web book" designed to "ma[k]e it easy for the public to understand the problems that this industry presents to them." The project, MacDougall explained to AHRC readers, grew out of a desire to "bridge the gap" between the two groups that most often write about American housing—"academics (too dry and technical to be interesting) or homeowners (too emotional and overwrought to be credible)." Thus, the HOAprimer—the website for which speaks of the need to "awaken a sleeping public to a plague that is threatening to destroy the American dream of homeownership and undermine the common democratic principals [sic] so many have fought to preserve for over 200 years." That would be common-interest developments (CIDs), also known as homeowner associations.

Among the HOAprimer's 20 chapters is one titled "The CAI: Putting in the Fix," in which MacDougall explains that the "original purpose of the CAI was to instruct homeowner board members in the proper ways to run a [sic] HOA," but that the organization "eventually degenerated into a nationwide organization representing the special interests of property management companies and lawyer's groups." CAI's purpose today? "[T]o see to it that the steady flow of cash from the pockets of CID homeowners into the coffers of their members continues unencumbered by any regulatory entanglements."

Okay. So what does Dorian MacDougall really think?

In his 1901 novel The Octopus, Frank Norris compared a giant railroad conglomerate to the titular octopus—large and sinewy, tentacles snaking everywhere, strangling hardworking wheat farmers with its oppressive business practices. A hundred years later, self-styled "homeowner advocates"—operating solo or as part of a group, and organized under names like AHRC, the Coalition of HomeOwners for Rights and Education (CHORE), Cyber Citizens for Justice (CCFJ), and Citizens for Constitutional Local Government (CCLG)—are convinced they've identified another, equally insidious octopus: the HOA industry, as represented by CAI. Indeed, they may not sign off on every single page of the HOAprimer, which is a sort of advocate's handbook, but when it comes to CAI, most of them seem to agree with the world according to MacDougall. Certainly all the activists who spoke to Common Ground—and many who declined interviews—hew closely to his view of an organization that pays lip service to representing the interests of everyday homeowners but in actuality is dominated by lawyers and managers whose sole motivation is making a quick buck.

In an open appeal for stories about "unethical conduct by CAI members" posted on the AHRC website after Part I of this article appeared in the May/June issue of Common Ground, CCLG President George Staropoli described the industry as rife with professional abuse: "refusals to respond as any collection agency is required; the ‘hot potato' game where the management firm punts to the attorney who punts to the management firm, and in the meantime the only thing accomplished is rising attorney fees and penalties; collusion with the board to ignore the laws and government documents, and to make frivolous claims and arguments without merit; delays to jack up litigation costs; etc."

Understanding that mindset is the key to understanding just about everything else advocates think and want, because their platforms and tactics are predicated on the idea that when it comes to the machinations of the HOA industry, homeowners are, to say the least, underrepresented. "[CAI and other industry representatives] claim they want to help the homeowners," says CHORE's Pat Haruff, "but you know what? I haven't seen anything they've done to help the homeowners. Everything they do is for the vendor. It's for the HOA attorney." Adds Shu Bartholomew, a Fairfax, Virginia–based advocate who hosts a weekly Internet radio show called On the Commons: "CAI has a lot of stuff. You've got the networking, you've got the resources. And the homeowners who are caught in the middle of this [don't] have those resources, [don't] understand the powers that associations have."

Not surprisingly, industry representatives don't see it that way. CAI Chief Executive Officer Tom Skiba theorizes that advocates use "CAI attorneys" as shorthand for the industry as a way of "encourag[ing] a negative, emotional, gut-level response from their audiences and play[ing] on the perceived distrust of attorneys in our culture." But in reality, Skiba says, only 659—2.5 percent—of CAI's 26,000 members are attorneys, while more than 16,000 are association board members and homeowners. "Unfortunately," Skiba says, "the truth doesn't have the emotional impact of being able to blame everything on the attorneys."

It makes a certain amount of sense that activists would focus on CAI and its attorney members, simply because much of this debate—especially in frontline states like Arizona, California, and Florida—is played out in state legislatures. There, advocates often face off against CAI's Legislative Action Committees (LACs), whose most active members tend to be lawyers. But fixating on CAI to the exclusion of other industry organizations—or dismissing those other groups as tentacles of the same octopus—obscures the fact that there are different facets to the industry. And that it's not unusual to find differences of opinion among CAI and, at the national level, the Institute for Real Estate Management and the National Association of Housing Cooperatives; in California, the California Association of Community Managers (CACM) and the Executive Council of Homeowners (ECHO); the Arizona Association of Community Association Managers; and, in Florida, the Coalition of Community Associations (COCA).

"We are different organizations," CACM President Karen Conlon says of her group and CAI. "We have different priorities, which is healthy for an industry." But CACM usually gets tarred with the same brush as CAI. The AHRC website is particularly contemptuous: "Laws they lobby for, or against[,] cost homeowners rights and property." Likewise, AHRC dismisses ECHO, which is based in San Jose, as a "non-profit trade lobby group dominated by homeowner association foreclosure lawyers and litigation support group [sic]." But, according to Oliver Burford, ECHO's executive director, his organization's membership is actually dominated by homeowner associations—1,485 in all—with another 340 associate members. And, yes, they include attorneys. "We've got a very elaborate set of laws that regulate homeowner associations [in California]," Burford says. "Those laws are far more extensive than volunteer board members could fathom their way through."

For their part, advocates say they too are frequently mischaracterized—as "anti-HOA." The truth, more than one of them says, is that they're "pro-homeowner." Says CCFJ President Jan Bergemann: "The idea behind [HOAs] is very, very good. I think it has a lot of good issues. But the system as it is today fails the owners in a lot of ways." Shu Bartholomew says some advocates are anti-HOA—but "certainly not all of them. Most of them are trying to tweak things and trying to make them work properly." And Haruff, who earlier this year finished a three-year stint on the board of her association in Mesa, Arizona, says: "I don't want to get rid of my HOA. I enjoy my swimming pool and my tennis courts. I couldn't have them on my own. The only thing everyone at CHORE wants is responsibility and accountability from the board of directors."

Not every industry representative buys that. COCA founding member Richard L. Spears, for one, has called CCFJ members "homeowner association anarchists." Says Spears, who spent five years as president of his Orlando HOA and also served on CAI's national Board of Trustees in the 1990s: "There isn't any question in my mind—they're not going to be satisfied until homeowner associations no longer exist in the state of Florida. And they're going to try to do the same thing to condos." Similarly, Jill Van Zeebroeck, CMCA, PCAM, chair of CAI's California LAC, calls AHRC "probably the single most anti-HOA" group. "You read [AHRC's website], and you get a really bad taste in your mouth," Van Zeebroeck says. "It's attack, attack, attack, and no substance. How about this: If you don't like something, how about coming up with a solution?"

Anti-HOA or pro-homeowner, anarchist or reformist—homeowner advocates do occasionally think about more than just the octopus. In fact, some of them have spent a great deal of time pondering, writing, trading stories with each other, and talking to legislators about what's wrong with HOAs and condos, and how to fix them. They don't always agree with each other—homeowner advocacy is as diverse as any other political movement, with zealots, negotiators, fringe elements, and mainstream operatives—but in interviews and on their websites, they return to certain themes.

The HOA model is broken at best, inherently exploitative at worst. Take a look at some of the headlines on AHRC's website: "HOMEOWNER ASSOCIATION COMMUNITIES: DYNASTIES OF DYSFUNCTION." "A Culture of Lies." "THE LEGALISTIC RUSE OF HOMEOWNER ASSOCIATION GOVERNING DOCUMENTS." Here are some from CCFJ's website: "Condo board under review for misuse of funds." "Pet peeves: Condo owners fight no-pet rules." "HOA—Tenants forced from home." And from CHORE: "FL—Lien for $522,700 levied on each condo owner." "ALL—Property values are no reason to ban Nativity." "AZ—Some HOAs late to learn cost of street repairs."

And on and on. Each advocacy group's website links to countless newspaper articles from across the country, highlighting one negative story after another—boards suing residents, residents suing boards, boards meeting in secret, managers sending warning letters and issuing fines over trivial violations, HOAs with inadequate reserves, condos without insurance. And the foreclosures—the websites suggest they're at plague levels, and often triggered over a few hundred dollars in delinquent assessments. Is it really that bad? Or is this just sensationalism on the part of advocates? "No, I don't think so," Bergemann says. "Most of the articles we are posting are newspaper articles—articles we can't even influence." Bartholomew thinks, if anything, HOA horror stories are underreported. "There's a lot more than people are willing to admit," she says. "A lot of homeowners will call me. There's been a lot of foreclosures, and [the homeowners involved] are embarrassed. They don't want to go public."

But industry types think advocates have made hay—bitter, splintery hay—out of a few anomalous cases. Especially when it comes to foreclosures, which aren't tracked nationally and thus are impossible to measure, but which elicit a gut-level response from the general public. "We say there is no epidemic of foreclosures," Spears says. "Cyber Citizens for Justice has taken the few foreclosures they can find—because they always make the news—and tried to make them look like an epidemic." Another industry criticism is that advocates report stories selectively, omitting or downplaying key facts. Two years ago, for example, a California couple lost their home to nonjudicial foreclosure after failing to pay what began as $120 in assessments. "We agree that nobody should lose their home for $120, but there are other aspects to the case that have never been reported," Conlon says, citing a confidential source but declining to be more specific. "And because of that, the story was misrepresented in the press as well as from these homeowner advocacy groups." The result, Conlon says, is that "anecdotal stories" like this lead to well-meaning but misbegotten legislation.

Paul Wean, Esq., who chairs CAI's Florida Legislative Alliance, says CCFJ uses its website to "publish what I consider urban myths. These are all the horror stories of people being foreclosed on by board members who want to get them out for cheap to buy their property.... They don't accentuate at all the 99.99 percent of associations that operate properly, without horror stories."

HOAs are governmental entities and as such should be bound by constitutional strictures. This is something about which Staropoli feels strongly. He declined several requests for a formal interview with Common Ground, but laid out his position in an "open e-mail questionnaire." He wrote: "At the heart of the matter is the continued replacement of democratic local government, governments subject to the U.S. Constitution and 14th Amendment prohibitions, with contractual, authoritarian private governments that are not subject to the prohibitions of the 14th Amendment." Actually, that could be changing. In February, a New Jersey appeals court found that an HOA is bound by the state constitution when it comes to allowing residents to post signs, contribute to newsletters, and access community meeting space. The ultimate ramifications of the decision have yet to be felt, but, either way, CAI's Tom Skiba thinks Staropoli's logic is flawed. "The fact is that by statute, common law, contract, and decades of practice, community associations are not-for-profit entities," Skiba says, "and are and should be subject to the relevant and applicable business law, contract law, and specific community association or common-interest-development law in each state."

HOAs aren't governmental entities per se, but still need more government regulation. That could mean a state ombudsman position, as Nevada has for HOAs and Florida has for condos. Or it could mean specific legislative provisions that delineate how associations can and can't collect assessments, conduct meetings, fund their reserves, enforce rules, foreclose, and so on. "What I think the middle ground looks like is, there has to be a government agency where everyone can go to find a solution to the problem without having to spend thousands of dollars in litigation," Bergemann says. "It's not that we want something for free, but these lawsuits are killing people." Shu Bartholomew doesn't think associations should have the power to fine or foreclose — although neither does she think homeowners can shirk their obligations. "They have to pay [their assessments]," she says. "But the teeth that associations seem to think are absolutely necessary are just a tool for abuse."

Pat Haruff goes further than Bergemann or Bartholomew, all the way to an idea she admits few of her fellow advocates embrace. "I don't believe the board should have jurisdiction over anything except [maintenance of] the common areas," she says. "Because each time you change the board of directors, you get different opinions. Everybody's outlook on life is different. I might like the color purple, you might hate it." Until the Arizona legislature decides to strip associations of their elemental powers, CHORE is advocating more incremental changes, including the restoration of the state's homestead exemption, which would curtail an association's ability to foreclose, and the creation of a "dispute resolution agency"—not an ombudsman, Haruff says, because "an ombudsman has no teeth." She says: "We want [association boards] to fulfill and honor their fiduciary duty.... We want them to abide by their governing documents and state statutes."

So do industry representatives, many of whom agree that board members are frequently ill-trained and that the association model can be abused. "Our perspective," Conlon says, "is that transparency by boards is very, very important—that the owners understand what is going on in their community, and that boards do a better job of communicating what is going on in their community." The problem, Conlon says, is that the legislative solutions supported by advocates in California often impose requirements or restrictions that force board members to seek ever more professional guidance—usually from attorneys. Scott Carpenter, Esq., co-chair of CAI's Arizona LAC, sees the same phenomenon in Arizona: "I tell Pat [Haruff] all the time, ‘This bill'—fill in the blank—‘will be the Attorney Employment Act.'"

Spears thinks there's an even bigger problem with these types of legislative remedies—namely, the government doesn't belong in the equation. "COCA would like to see a recognition by the political powers that be...that the boards of directors of community associations are duly elected," Spears says, "and that if there's a problem with them, it's up to the people who elected them to make the change. Change should not come from the outside."

But what if there's no other choice? What if HOAs are the only game in town? "Municipalities did not resist the spread of CIDs with their private governments," Dorian MacDougall writes in his HOAprimer, "because CIDs relieved local municipalities of the responsibility of providing expensive infrastructure, yet the CID residents continued to pay the same taxes to the city. This situation made it relatively easy for developers to get city approval for CIDs. Today, due to the enormous financial benefits afforded to both developer and municipality, the concept of CID housing has generally gained acceptance nationwide."

Indeed, CAI estimates that among new housing stock, close to four out of five units are built in some form of common-interest community. In some markets it's higher. "It used to be that you had a choice about buying in an association," Conlon says. "But here in California—no. That's an unfortunate situation, but it's an overall housing issue."

And, in terms of advocacy, it's a powerful argument. One activist, Kathy Johnson, has organized a group around it—Consumers for Housing Choice (CHC), founded in Delaware six years ago, although Johnson recently moved to Maine. CHC's mission: "To enhance the ability of consumers throughout the United States to choose to purchase housing not situated in mandatory membership residential common interest developments." Says Johnson: "It's clearly a different approach than the reformers. It's clarifying the marketing of it."

Then again, Conlon says, even in a market where there's limited or no housing choice, people have options. "There are things and questions someone can ask before they move into a community," she says, "to make sure the community is managed well, is governed well." Indeed, interviews with people on both sides of the debate suggest this one area of common cause: Homeowners need to involve themselves in the process. And, according to Carpenter, everyone needs to be realistic. "There are people who believe that the homeowner association must function as a neighborhood in a traditional, help-our-neighbors, 1950s kind of sense," Carpenter says. "And my point is, we don't get along with each other as humans in any context, statistically speaking.... There will never be a community association where, by rules or CC&Rs or statutes, we can force people to get along with each other. We have to assume a certain static level of conflict in associations. And the question becomes, where do we intervene? That's the philosophical difference."