The Cohousing Company

Timelapse of Common Meal Cooking in Nevada City Cohousing

Charles' Trip to Washington, D.C.

Participatory Design in Affordable (Subsidized) Cohousing

My Oct 17–18, 2022 meetings with five congress people and their staff, navigating how HUD subsidies could be used for cohousing projects, homeless projects, and other low-income projects, went very well, but they were just the first step.

The Problem: Currently it is difficult to work with the future residents when working on projects that use public funds. The current writing of Title 6 & Title 24 of the HUD guidelines discourage it.

The Solution: I met with the staff of five congress people in Washington, D.C. to encourage them to encourage participation. It facilitates community and therefore accountability and personal growth when they live in a high-functioning cooperative-by-nature neighborhood.

I met with the staff of Mark Amodei NV (R)/John Quinn, Adam Schiff CA (D)/Jamie (Legislative Assistant), Ami Bera CA (D)/Emma Bruce, Jennifer Wexton VA (D)/Chris Gibson, and Jim Costa CA (D)/Kit Devine.

While they were all very supportive of revising Title 6 and Title 24 of the HUD guidelines, they were also all hesitant to take up the gauntlet without more congressional support with their fellow congress people on board or at least a bigger coalition. While cooperatively designed subsidized housing is very common in countries like Denmark (it saves the government a lot of money to have projects be self-managed), it is not known in the US.

This is why I am asking you to write a letter to your congress people to show your support on this issue.

Once there are obviously a few dozen or so congress members that support this language and these revisions, I will encourage one of them to sponsor the revisions, then others to co-sponsor a bill to support high-functioning affordable neighborhoods that depend on the feedback of future residents to be the supportive (cohousing and the like) neighborhoods that are necessary to facilitate a viable society, but might require some subsidies to make them work. This will be a process, but the time to begin is now.

Find Our Sample Letter for Your Congress Person HERE

Please modify this draft letter, make it your own, and send one to your congress person (if by email please bcc me) by Nov 15. Now we must go with the momentum and support community at the congressional level. Please write your congress people as fast as you can, refer to my personal meetings with the staff if you desire. The following is the weight of influence and ratings of the effectiveness of the different types of communications to the congress people:

1. Have a personal visit as I did
2. Send a handwritten letter delivered by USPS
3. Send a typed letter delivered by USPS
4. Give them a call on the phone
5. Send an Email

Please let me know who you have connected.

Please see these five explicit revisions that I am proposing to Title 6 & 24 HERE that will allow for better participation in the future.

For full story of what I’m trying to accomplish these days, please consider picking up:

Cohousing Communities: Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhoods

For this holiday season, give a gift of cohousing to your loved ones by ordering the book through our website. For a limited time only, we offer signed copies and customized message when you order Cohousing Communities from our website.

Other Updates in Cohousing: Table of Contents

November 2022

• Community... Don't You Miss It? Public Presentation in Washington D.C.

• A Solution to Homelessness in Spokane Presentation, November 3rd, 2022

• Antioch Continuing Education Classes in 2023

• Tragedy of the Common/Bystander Effect/Free Rider Problem in Cohousing

Community... Don't You Miss It? Event Recap

Public Presentation for New Cohousing Community in Mid-Atlantic Area

The public presentation at Takoma Village Cohousing on October 21^st went very well. There were fledging groups from entire D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area. The big takeaway was for them to organize a single Getting-It-Built workshop for several new local groups (up to 30 participants).

If you are interested, please email Anne Zebaldo at midatlantic@earthlink.net

Solving homelessness starts with "a roof and a lock" says visiting author Charles Durrett

Spokane Public Radio Interview & Article by Rebecca White

Author and architect Charles Durrett said resolving homelessness doesn’t have to be complicated.

The author of “A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town,” and one of the creators of several villages for formerly homeless residents and co-housing communities, said in his projects, residents found the community they needed to stabilize their lives.

He said permanently housing people also saved the cities where residents had been homeless many thousands of dollars in reduced emergency room visits, police calls, jail cells, fire calls, and social services.

Listen to the Interview HERE

A Solution to Homelessness in Spokane Presentation

November 3rd, Robinson Teaching Theater, Whitworth University Recap

Reducing homelessness in your town only requires three things—a vision that is doable, the will to pursue it, and a clear set of steps.

The first step consistently seems to be either a public presentation of consequence, where the public convinces themselves and everyone else that enough is enough. Spokane had 206 homeless deaths last year and 162 the year before. The public is ready to take initiatives and they want to be a part of the solution.

And here's the groundswell to prove it—all of these good people here on a cool November 3rd night.

The other possibility like American Canyon is that an enlightened public official has initiated it and taken it through the political process. That process is laid out in A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town.

There were 200 attendees on Thursday night for our public presentation, and 40 on Saturday morning ready to discuss the next steps and become part of the New Hope Task Force and part of the solution.

Watch the presentation by clicking  ► above or click this link HERE

For more information, contact: New Hope Housing & Homelessness Task Force, email newhoperesourcehhtf@gmail.com

Antioch Continuing Education Classes 2023

Now open fore registration

The Tragedy of the Commons

Avoidable Maintenance Cost Problems in Cohousing

Divide and Conquer and The Tragedy of the Commons were two key political concepts forwarded by Machiavelli in the early 1500’s. Divide and Conquer is clear. Get the people separated and keep them separated because then they cannot and will not effectively organize for their rights, for their defense, or otherwise. Keep them distracted and watching TV, safely away from connecting with others. Obviously cohousing is the true anecdote to divide and conquer. After the French revolution higher taxes where levied on anyone who stayed in the farming villages in Denmark, with lower taxes to those who moved out onto their farmland, incentivizing people to isolate themselves from their community, and they did. Consequential social change was delayed for another 100 years.

Cohousing is the opposite of divide and conquer, but The Tragedy of the Commons is the Achilles heel of cohousing. “If I don’t do it, someone else probably will.” Maybe. Whoever figures out how to counter the Tragedy of Commons in Cohousing where everything is voluntary ­– should get the Noble Cohousing Prize – and be honored for such at the next National Cohousing Conference circa 2 years hence.

A community I know well just raised their HOA monthly dues from $664 to $776 per month – largely because of the tragedy of the commons – someone else will do it, or perhaps not, and we’ll have to pay to have it done. They just paid $12,000 to repair two decks. With a little more labor on workdays, they would have repaired said decks, by catching the problem early and therefore making the fix easy to perform, it would have costed about $500 for each deck. Just by pulling the soffits and inspecting. Then their bicycle sheds had a terrible wicking at the plywood bottom costing them delayed maintenance repairs in the thousands. Easy proactive care of these issues would have been more than possible – for little cost if they had the wo/men power showing up to the workdays. That participation is infinitely doable if there is accountability. Although I’m sure no one moves into cohousing to take advantage of their neighbors, but without accountability – it just happens. The only way to counter tragedy of the commons discovered so far is not volunteerism, but formalizing fairness.

Emeryville cohousing has clear accountability, and their community looks brand new with few increases in dues over the last 30 years. Dues grow because some are not doing their share. When it feels like everyone is fully committed (they have areed to fairness), half the residents will be doing their share, while the other half are doing more than their share. This is because they do not feel taken advantage of but feel generous because everyone is doing their minimum responsibility. That only comes with accountability though, people either show up or pay for the hours that they did not show up for. In Emeryville, it’s $40/hr for not showing up. So basically everyone shows up—even if it’s to market the workday, be a cheerleader, or similar. People only do what they physically can, even if they feel like there aren’t many ways they can contribute there always is. Call the hardware store, pick up supplies, be a cheerleader, make some lemonade, etc. That they can do. Yes they get a lot more for our HOA fees than typical (insurance cheaper, internet cheaper, heating cheaper, really great dinners cheaper, about a hundred things less costly—and therefore it is definitely less costly overall), but they could be more affordable if residents do the easy stuff like inspection, and ground level preventative priming and painting. Those activities have the added benefit of building community. Someone always knows what needs to be done – but they usually don’t want to do it alone. Overall living in cohousing is less costly and more affordable. But it’s nowhere as affordable as it could be if people did their agreed to minimum maintenance.

Read the extended version of this discussion in the book Cohousing Communities: Designing High Functioning-Neighborhoods pages 282-289. “Grab a rake, a mower, something —but most importantly formalize it—otherwise you will end up taking advantage of your neighbors.” Some groups are constantly having members of their maintenance team quitting because they are doing so much more than their share and get burned out at many levels.

Here’s to firing on all cylinders!

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) directly to get bulk discounts, and I find that successful projects get started when lots of 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, 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. 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 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 because the book have sold more than 2,000 copies.

Cohousing Communities: Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhoods

A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town

Also available HERE

Revitalizing Our Small Towns

Cohousing's role in positively effecting waning small towns.

Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities

with Kathryn McCamant

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

Finding A Site: Cohousing From the Ground Up

Growing Community: How to Find New Cohousing Members

The Cohousing Company Website