Here’s an email I just sent to a woman who’s thinking about moving here with her family. Whadaya think? Will she run away very quickly?
You’re right – Tierra Nueva is far from perfect, but we’re working on making things flow (work well) – as opposed to being totally ignorant of the need for evaluation/change. People don’t always agree, agreements aren’t in place that might make things easier, and sometimes I want out. Sometimes I feel so frustrated I want to just leave.
But living here is like being a parent. You know – it’s work, it’s not always fun, but the overall, helicopter view of it is so incredibly rewarding and amazing. I wouldn’t exchange it for anything. The challenges of it would be, for me, the same at any community. I’d wish people were more like me, the way I do in the world. But I know that having people *unlike* me makes things beautiful and perfect.
Right now I’m looking out my kitchen window, watching the kids play on the green 10 feet from my house. They’re picking flowers and making little people out of them. The trees are beautiful, the kids are happy (except Colin just exclaimed that he wanted to cut his hair and he didn’t like me saying he might want to think about it for an hour or so). As far as my kids are concerned, this place is dreamland – perfect. It’s ’cause they don’t attend the business meetings. 
I feel grounded here, particularly when we have social events. Business is just decision-making and getting things “right” – it’s the social stuff that is the glue here, the people are the bond that has me thinking that I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
So, yes, there’s transition/change in the air here, and I’m excited about it now. I wasn’t excited 6 months or so ago when we were in the gunk of it… slodging through business meetings that I eventually stopped going to. Now I go to the meetings excited about everyone working together.
When you come to visit I think you’ll see some pretty cool people – young and old. I remember when I first visited, I was at a meal and asked Amy what she likes the best about living here. She extended her arms out to the women sitting next to her (and the women next to them) and declared – “This! This is the best part – the people!” I remember thinking “I want a piece of that!” I wanted the Cheers theme song to be playing in my head in my neighborhood.
It’s so easy for me to cheerlead to you even more. Frankly, you’re gold… honestly, I want more families with children moving in here since it offers more for the children. When I first explored living here 3+ years ago, there was only ONE young child here Colin’s age – and his mother was soooo eager for me to move in – she loved her child and wanted playmates for him here. Now we have plenty of children, but we still welcome more.
So I’ll temper my cheerleading and say that living in any cohousing community is a challenge and an amazing opportunity for growth. I’d be lying if I said it was heaven and a perfect antedote to modern living. But it’s great.
It just occurred to me that living here is, for me, a challenge and so rewarding – but it’s also an investment in my kids. They live the way I used to – running around safely, spending time in groups after school, not having to be driven to playgroups so much. They get to witness consensus at work – they get to grow up experiencing group work and community service first hand.
Well, that might be more information than you needed – I hope to meet you in October so the community can speak for itself (instead of my rambling thoughts!). 
With best wishes,
~Caity
Wonderful posting. I think cohousing is great. I’ve known about it for years and enjoy reading blog postings/articles on it. I don’t live in a cohousing. Yet.
Thank you, Katie! I appreciate your note – please do let me know if you end up moving into a community – I’d love to know your journey. Thanks! ~Caity
Caity,
I sure hear you about the temptation of just being a cheer leader.
I find that when talking with the general public or media, who do not live in cohousing, there is so much to share that is positive, and nobody likes to share about their dirty laundry with strangers.
Some good news is that many of us do take the challenges seriously and do what we can to support each other. Probably the best known forum is Cohousing-L, a listserv with thousands of subscribers who do share their problems and seek advice from others. Another forum is the annual National Cohousing Conferences. The Coho/US 2010 Conference will be in Boulder, CO on June 16-20 at the Univ. of Colorado. The conferences have many sessions that deal with ways to handle a variety of the real-world issues that all people who live together face. Not that either Coho-L or the conferences are silver bullets, but they are populated by many who are working hard to help existing cohousing communities thrive.
Info on Coho-L and the 2010 Conference are both available on the Cohousing website at Cohousing.org
Craig Ragland, Exec. Dir.
Cohousing Association of the United States
What are the signs and how can you tell the difference from a community that claims to be an alternative, from just a regular neighborhood?
When my husband and I began to attend meetings, pay into the less than risk-free association membership that would put our $$ towards securing loans and building a cohousing community, we jumped feet first because we experienced consensus decision-making and respectful listening even though we had no real past experience with consensus and even though we were (and still are totally “blue-collar” in terms of income and work). We ended up helping to design, build and be a part of Tierra Nueva Cohousing for over 15 years–my husband, David, was even on-site during construction, just about every-day as a single-point of contact during this time for the group as a whole–this while we chased our two-year old around and had our second homebirth with Riley’s brother, Aiden.
We believed, with all our hearts, we had found our “community” and the home we would have for the rest of our lives and pass it down to our boys–and the great part was that we were passing on a progressive, alternative lifestyle that was at the other end of the continuum that extends from fascism and domination being at one end and consensus, equality and fair-play being at the other end. I have found that most cohousing “sites” don’t talk about the negatives and only want to put forward the happy, shiny side–it really doesn’t serve communities or those who are really interested in the progressive lifestyle that embraces consensus and equality if the shadow issues are always ignored or diminished somehow.
The state of our country is a scary parallel to what has happened in Tierra Nueva Cohousing, from the hope and joy that embodied the election of Obama (the beginning of something new and progressive in terms of where we were to live) to the the obstruction and almost complete halt in a cooperative, consensus decision-making, along with all the scandal and bullying that, if you listen to “real” news or even the Daily Show, you know about(Tierra Nueva Business Meetings reflect all this).
Having issues addressed was met with such residence and with such animosity, that my family experienced everything from having our laundry “bleached” to our Home Owner’s Association Board ignoring repeated requests for a fair discussion–the filibuster that democrats have experienced is so identical to our own situation that is is almost spooky–to finally having to move to keep physically and psychically safe–what a shame for our boys who have had to learn all about infidelity, violence and double-dealing in the place (their home) that was supposed to be safe.
Anyway, Tierra Nueva has experienced physical violence, numerous affairs, the loss of its consensus decision-making process and such a high degree of bullying that it reminds me of how I grew up in close to ghetto circumstances–I would compare it to being in Junior High again, except that these people really ought to know better.
If and/or when anyone looks to join a cohousing community, I can only say, make sure there is a clear consensus decision-making process, make sure there is a willingness to except “blue-collar” workers who may have calluses and dirty hands at the end of the day, but probably will be the folks who do the “grunt” work (and do it well) that the upper-middle class folks don’t want to or can’t do. (One healthy, meddle-aged man in Tierra Nueva actually sent out an e-mail to the community because he had one poison hemlock growing in his yard–he didn’t have the ware-with-all to put on a pair of gloves and pick up a shovel–some kind, older female removed the plant for him…)
There needs to be the capacity and willingness to “share power” work from a place of honesty and integrity (I was asked to “peer mediate for two women, I didn’t know it, but at the time, one of these women was having an affair with the other’s husband–not a good place to start from from a mediation stand-point).
Sharing power is very hard for upper middle-class people, in my experience, and if one doesn’t “submit” to their own perceived authority, or because they are simply acting out their sense of entitlement, the bullying begins in earnest. I truly believe there can only be a sharing of power when there is equality and consensus decision-making, otherwise those who try to play by the rules are knocked off, one-by-one. One single mom in our community was trounced by two other moms, because she complained that the daughter of one of these moms was smoking so much pot at night that it was getting into her seven-year-old’s room (which is right next door). Instead of giving the-pot-smoking teen a good talking-to, they went over and yelled at the mom worried about her seven-year-old’s exposure to pot smoke.
These things happen in community, and they need to be talked about openly and honestly, and the only way that can happen successfully is if folks who share in community and in its commons are on equal footing. It didn’t happen that way for Tierra Nueva, especially after people who preferred to be “bosses” and ‘managers” moved in (folks like this even moved in next door with no capital investment and expected to run the show) and who didn’t seem to think consensus decision-making was important enough to keep–once that happened there was a very swift decline in the community over-all.
My family and I needed to leave Tierra Nueva, to keep safe and sane, even after all the years of work and dedication–we are watching TN’s decline from a rental home until we can sell–we are just hoping against hope that there will be anything about TN that is still attractive enough to sell.
I hope the folks who seem more invested in “killing the messenger” everytime these less than positive issues come up will listen with their “three ears”, the two on the sides of their heads and the one that is in their gut–ignoring or dismissing or the usual responses of “maybe cohousing isn’t for you” doesn’t answer–cohousing was totally for us for going on 11 years in the living and several years in the making. Maybe cohousing isn’t for folks who think that by living in cohousing, it will make them cool or whatever…what I have found, is that across demographics, feminists, vegetarians, vegan, gay and/or lesbian, Buddhists, singles, married, whatever…a bully is a bully is a bully and if one isn’t committed to equality, fairness and non-violence, cohousing won’t change that either.
Carrie