Advocates, the public in general, the media, and especially state legislatures need to understand the power of the miniscule member CAI that has them conned. CAI dominates the HOA institution, or as I designate the fragmented collection of HOAs, HOA-Land. My initial research was conducted in 2007 and updated 10 years later in 2017.[1] I summarize my research on the size of CAI and its membership breakdown below.
The research was based on CAI data and the US Census at that time. To the point, from the 2017 study:
- Being concerned about the frequency of fixed ratios found in (A), I came across data from the CAI Indiana chapter for 2015 and 2016.[2] The percent ‘volunteers’ per HOA for both years was 32.7% and 32.8%, respectively. Very consistent.
- Of the 69 M people in HOAs, CAI membership, at most, consists of a miniscule .05% (.00048).
- Of the 33,000 CAI members, a minority of some 10,800 are ‘volunteers’ and not attorneys or managers.
- ‘Volunteers’ (CAVL) represent a miniscule .016% (.00016) of HOA members.
In contrast, AARP is a tremendous national powerhouse lobbyist representing, as reported in the 2014 WSJ article, some 37.8 million members. In contrast, 2010 AARP states membership of 35,700,000, and that’s 36% of the 50 plus population based on the US Census estimate.
Analyzing CAI’s membership and governing Board of Trustees structure revealed HOA “volunteers” are in the minority. “That’s about 14% representation by homeowners on the CAI governing body whose membership consists of 60% homeowner “volunteers.”[3]
So, who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf? We should be! Look what this miniscule minority managed to achieve over the years! Please understand, though, CAI is vulnerable and has made adjustments in the past based on published criticisms by advocates. We must not be afraid to call it what it is, using concrete documents and especially CAI’s own words.
FYI — Outstanding is a complaint filed with the antitrust division of the DOJ alleging that CAI is a monopoly.[4]
References
[1] See CAI miniscule minority dominates public policy (2007); CAI 2016 Factbook: looking into the ‘facts’.
[2] CAI Indiana chapter document.
[3] Who controls CAI and its 50 state HOA lobbying committees? (2012).
[4] See The need to regulate CAI monopoly. (2023).
HOA Constitutional Government 
Thereby CAI strongly is involved with the State or Federal legislative bodies as quoted by “CAI Advocacy” – Twitter “Are you a political influencer? If you know a legislator or their staff, please let us know in our Relationships Center! “, but yet you can not find an actual non-affiliated CAI member homeowner on their committees, or at least a HOA reformer.
With CAI dominating itself as the only authority to speak as the leading authority on Homeowners Associations (HOA) is a slap in every property owner’s face for those that live in HOAs. CAI’s influence has systematically destroyed most state bills that would protect the homeowners and not their vendors, HOA attorneys, and most certainly HOA management companies that profit off the backs of these HOAs & indoctrination of these HOA boards to do their bidding so they are able to profit from Non-Profit companies.