To be blunt, the economic model we have operated under for the past hundred or so years no longer works for many, if not most, of our Lodges. The continually rising costs of insurance and utilities, along with declining membership, have made it so. If Lodges are to continue to own buildings, those buildings will have to pay for themselves by allowing the Lodges to rent them out, either to other Lodges or to outside groups. My parent Lodge, for four years, was allowed to use the "private party" facility of a local restaurant. We had our regalia and other necessities in a large wheeled toolbox, which our Treasurer kept at his house & brought to the facility for our meetings. It worked out well until a Grand Master decided he didn't like our operation and ordered us to either buy a building of our own or move into another Lodge's building.