The Cohousing Company

January 2024 Newsletter

The Annual Winter Solstice Circle at Nevada City Cohousing

New Ground Cohousing Just Won World Habitat Award

‘We have brothers, sons, lovers – but they can’t live here!’ The happy home shared by 26 women

One of the many highlights of my career was going to Britain to negotiate an agreement between the then considered developer, who ended up developing and building the project, and the New Ground Cohousing Group on how to proceed in order to get the project built.

They had been working on this project for eight years and hadn’t gotten anywhere. By spending time with both parties, it was clear that there was a big trust issue between the group and the developer, so I spent the rest of the day with both building mutual trust agreements. They moved in 2 years later, and now they have won the U.N.’s World Habitat Award, which I am so happy about. BRAVO!

I was also fortunate enough the spend a couple of days at New Ground Cohousing this September. They mentioned that they are not anti-men, but they just felt that at this time British men were too masculine for the project to work, as they wanted it too. "Too many men from our (70–80 year-old) generation want to be alphas.” So, they decided to be all women. However, they mentioned that they fully expect the culture to evolve to be more egalitarian in the near future.

We are proud to play a part in another World Habitat cohousing community—the first one being East Lake Commons in Atlanta in 2001. The UN-Habitat has been very supportive of cohousing, as they recognize the one-of-a-kind benefits that cohousing communities have created and being run by the residents bring to the society as a whole.

Photos by Jill Mead

Want to learn more about New Ground Cohousing? Read the rest of the article in The Guardian HERE.

Updates in Cohousing: Table of Contents

January 2024

• Port Townsend Getting-It-Built Workshop
• Antioch Continuing Education Classes in Addressing Homelessness & Grassroots Organizing

Port Townsend Getting-It-Built Workshop

Save the Date: February 10 & 11, 2024

I’m pleased to announce that the new cohousing groups, Song Sparrow, Newt Crossing, and Puyallup Cohousing are coming together to put on a 2-Day Getting-It-Built Workshop on February 10–11, 2024 to start the process of creating these intergenerational cohousing communities.

This weekend workshop shares best practices and lessons learned throughout our over 35 years of experience, while also recognizing that each community is unique and each group needs to decide what approach makes the most sense for its specific location and situation. More cohousing communities have been started by the Getting-It-Built Workshop than by any other method in North America.

We will cover a number of topics, including: group process and membership, the development process, finding a site, the participatory design workshop process, putting together a professional team, working through city approvals, financial and ownership options, saving money, staying on track and on budget, and overall how to design a high-functioning community.

If you’re interested in attending, please contact Kate Nichols at katennichols@yahoo.com. 

Please also feel free to download THIS FLYER for more detailed information and to share with your friends, family, and neighbors.

Upcoming Antioch Continuing Education Classes

Grassroots Organizing and How to Address Homelessness in Your Town

We are beyond excited to continue our collaboration with Antioch University Continuing Education Program in 2024. We will kick off the year with 2 amazing programs below!

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 in general, and cohousing is no exception.



Many groups have contacted the publisher (New Society Press and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) directly to get bulk discounts, and I find that successful projects get started when lots of folks do this fun homework. I usually need to give a dozen copies of Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities, Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living and Cohousing Communities: Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhoods away to planners, banks, 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, and most importantly makes for a better project.

Cohousing is more than a sound bite; it is cultural pivot, and it takes folks doing some fun research first. Seattle and the surrounding areas have about a dozen cohousing communities today largely because the bookstores in town have sold more than 1,000 copies of Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities and the San Francisco area has over 20 cohousing communities largely because the book has sold more than 2,000 copies there.

Cohousing Communities: Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhoods

A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town

Also available HERE

Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities

with Kathryn McCamant

Revitalizing Our Small Towns

Cohousing's role in positively effecting waning small towns.

The Senior Cohousing Handbook: A Community Approach to Independent Living

Also available in Spanish

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

with Alexandria Levitt

Happily Ever Aftering in Cohousing: A Handbook for Community Living

Facilitator Guide - Senior Cohousing Study Group 1 Guides

Finding A Site: Cohousing From the Ground Up



Participant Guide - Senior Cohousing Study Group 1 Guides

Growing Community: How to Find New Cohousing Members

Architecture for Ageing Population

with the staff of Images Publishing

The Cohousing Company Website