The Cohousing Company

Happy New Year from The Cohousing Company & Nevada City Cohousing

Updates in Cohousing: Table of Contents

January 2022

• Bringing Back Community to the Chickahominy Tribe

• Port Townsend Public Presentation in April for a New Cohousing Community

• Community Organizing Opportunity in Seattle, Spokane, Port Townsend, & San Luis Obispo

• Auburn Cohousing: A Danish Development Model Coming to the U.S.

• Meet a Cohouser: Alice from Berkeley Cohousing

Proposed Communities & Childcare Center

In June 2021, we had our first trip since March 3, 2020, to Virginia to work on a new childcare center design for the Chickahominy Indian Tribe. By June 25, 2021, the design criteria/program were compiled and then the application set to the Administration of Children & Family by September 1, 2021. We are expecting the funding of this childcare center to be approved soon and then to start the serious design.

While we were visiting the tribal property, the chief of Chickahominy said,

“We need to get back to elders sharing with generations coming up. We want the seniors right next to the childcare center so that they can at least have lunch together in order to share the wisdom of generations before.”

In addition, they seriously believe that the surrounding community is also in need of help. They hope that the new facility will have a positive influence beyond the tribal center. Therefore, we are proposing a senior rich cohousing community onsite next to the childcare center.

Traditional Chickahominy Villages

Agriculturally based, one wigwam per family & one long house

Where Chickahominy families live now. Atomized across the landscape, foreign to their former villages, and antithetical to grandmas and granddaughters spontaneously spending quality time together. The opposite of a village.

Public Presentation in Port Townsend for Newt Crossing Cohousing Community on April 9th

"It is time to re-kickoff a public presentation for Newt Crossing in Port Townsend."

Please spread the word to anyone you know (your email list) who might be interested in joining a new community in Port Townsend, or just wanting to know more about cohousing.

Location: Quimper Grange

1219 Corona Street

Port Townsend, WA 98368

Date & Time: April 9th, 2022 @ 3:00 PM

For more information, please email newt@olympus.net

See you there!

Community Organizing Along the West Coast

Seattle, Spokane, Port Townsend, Eugene, & San Luis Obispo

While there are a number of factors that contribute to the seemingly insurmountable issue of homelessness, from drug addiction, lack of education, mental illness, we still believe that it is an issue that can be overcome. And like every problem in our lives, a solution has to start somewhere, and in this case, we believe that it must start with community organizing.

Community organizing not only creates a sense of belonging and empowerment to people who are experiencing homelessness, but it also creates an opportunity for an open dialogue that allow other people to hear their stories and see them as human beings, instead of being criminalized and dehumanized by outdated laws and false narratives. This is what we tried to achieve when we spent three days at Washington-Jefferson Park in Eugene, which we covered in great detail in our December newsletter's article: Anna Got Her Rake

However, by having done thousands of hours of community organizing, I know that this first meeting is just the tip of the iceberg, i.e., there is only a tiny bit of collective functionality, a sense of belonging and positive identity that comes from it if any.The way that it works in this case is that it is very cumulative, and the effectiveness from week to week goes up rapidly after the first meeting.

As a result, we have been reaching out to many organizations in California, Oregon, and Washington for support to creates opportunities to the many concerned citizens through public presentations and discussions. Please forward this article to anyone who you believe are passionate about this issue, and we would love to connect with them.

Auburn Cohousing

A Danish Development Model Coming to the U.S.

Placer County in California has entered into an Exclusive Right to Negotiate Agreement (ERNA) with The Cohousing Company. County officials have been to other cohousing communities in the area and strongly believe that a community like this in their town of Auburn would create a fantastic, high-functioning neighborhood and prove to be model for future suburban development there, which is suffering from endless suburbia driving and watching TV conducive environments.

Living in a real high-functioning neighborhood invokes a sense of belonging, a sense of accountability, and a sense of ownership—"this is my neighborhood and I will help by reacting to concerns, everything from litter to projects that can be done with others."

County officials reaching out to an aspiring cohousing effort is new to America, but very common in Denmark. It seems obvious that the county could play a significant role in positive neighborhood-making and they can.

This is the first cohousing for this to happen in the U.S. In Denmark, they have realized that there are so many services— elder care, childcare, after school, music lessons, and saging in general that are best provided at the neighborhood level. And there they can manage a community garden, meals, recreation, rides to the grocery store, entertainment, and more. In other words, if you look at all of the health and welfare institutions established at the county level for seniors, children, folks with disabilities, and just making things work, it's clear in an organic fashion that the neighborhood can do it better, and at one hundredth of the cost. The county is always there as a backup, but not for the everyday quality of life necessities.

Books by Charles Durrett

Books have played a major role from the beginning in terms of getting cohousing to this country and built in your town, starting with our first book Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves (The European Story). Bookstores normally play a key role in culture change, and cohousing is no exception. Many groups have contacted the publisher (New Society Press) directly to get bulk discounts, and I find that successful projects get started when folks do their homework. I usually need to give a dozen copies of Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities and/or Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living away to planners, neighbors, mayors, new residents, local architects, builders, and so on—to give them context. It saves the group thousands and thousands of hours, dollars, and delays. Cohousing is more than a sound bite; it is a cultural change, and it takes folks doing some fun research first.

State-Of-The-Art Cohousing: Lessons Learned from Quimper Village

with Alexandria Levitt

Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities

with Kathryn McCamant

The Senior Cohousing Handbook: A Community Approach to Independent Living

Also available in Spanish

Happily Ever Aftering in Cohousing: A Handbook for Community Living

Revitalizing Our Small Towns

Cohousing's role in positively effecting waning small towns.

Community-Enhanced Design: Cohousing and Other High-Functioning Neighborhoods

Also available on Amazon

Finding A Site: Cohousing From the Ground Up

Growing Community: How to Find New Cohousing Members

A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town

Also available HERE

The Cohousing Company Website