Richmond Brainstorm

Hi, all.  I bought a house here on N 11th back in May (cf. the houseblog) for the grand total of $8000, and since then I've been walking the dog past a lot of other heart-meltingly beautiful (but vacant) brick houses.  There's no economic reason to keep these houses around, unfortunately, so recently I've been trying to think of one before the city declares more of them unsafe; the idea that presents itself most obviously (to me) is to host entrepreneurs or other creative people.  For room, board, working space, bandwidth, and business advice, they'd either pay rent, or contribute equity to a sort of "barter VC" (which doesn't preclude the additional use of traditional capital, of course).

The ventures in question could really be just about anything: regular startups, non-profits, or (given their own funding) artists or the like.  There's no reason a non-business-oriented person or group couldn't just pay rent for a residential workspace and meals.

I've just really started kicking this idea around online.  Many seem to find it a pretty good one, but there are clearly a vast number of real problems to be overcome.  I'd love to hear some reactions from locals, either here or on the idea's own site here (more room there).